Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/777

 KOJIA. snrcmcnt equal to 10,230 English yards (Burgess, Tnpogi'aphy ami Antiquities of Rome, vol. i. p. 458), which agrees as nearly as possible with the number above given of 5| miles. Nibby, who made a laborious but perhaps not very accurate attempt to ascertain the point by walking round the presumed line of the ancient walls, arrived at a con- siderably larger result, or nearly 8 miles. (^Mura, cfc. p. 90.) False and doubtful Gates. — But our present business is with the gates of the SeiTian town; and it would really appear that in the time of Vespasian there were no fewer than thirty-seven outlets from the ancient walls. The seven old gates to which Pliny alludes as having ceased to exist, may possibly have included those of the old Eomulean city and also some in the Servian walls, which had been closed. In order to account for the large number recorded by Pliny, we must figure to ourselves what would be the natural progress of a city surrounded with a strong wall like that of Servius, whose population was beginning to outgrow the accommodation afforded within it. At first perhaps houses would be built at the sides of the roads issuing from the main gates ; but, as at Rome these sites were often appropriated for sepulchres, the accommodation thus aflfbrded would be Umited. In process of time, the use of the wall becoming every day more obsolete, fresh gates would be pierced, corresponding with the line of streets inside, which would be continued by a line of road outside, on which houses would be erected. Gradually the walls themselves began to disappear; but the open- ings that had been pierced were still recorded, as marking, for fiscal or other purposes, the boundary of the city wards. Hence, though Augustus had divided the city and suburbs into fourteen new Eegions, we find the ancient boundary marked by these gates still recorded and measured in the time of Vespasian ; and indeed it seems to have been kept up for a long while afterwards, since we find the same number of thirty-seven gates recorded both in the Notitia and Cm-iosum. Hence we would not tamper with the text of Pliny, as Nibby has done with very unfortunate success {Mura, i^c. p. 213, seq.) — a remedy that should never be resorted to except in cases of the last necessity. Pliny's statement may be regarded as wholly without influence with respect to the original Servian gates, the number of which we should rather be inclined to reduce than to increase. We find, indeed, more names mentioned than those enu- merated, but some of them were ancient or obsolete names; and, again, we must remember that " porta" does not always signify a city gate. Of the former kind was tltfc Pokta Agonknsis, which, as we learn from Paulus Diaconus (p. 10), was another appella- tion for the Porta Collina. The same author (p. 255) also mentions a Porta Quirinalis as a substantive gate; though possibly, like Agonensis, it was only a duiilicate name for one of the gates on the Quirinal. The term " porta " was applied to any arched thoroughfare, and sometimes perhaps to the arch of an aqueduct when it spanned a street in the line of wall ; in which case it was built in u superior manner, and had usually an inscription. Among internal thoroughfares called "poriae" were the Stei'.corauia on the Clivus Capitolinus, the Liurn- KKNsis in the amphitheatre, the Fknkstell.v, men- tioned by Ovid {Fast. vi. 569) as that by which Fortuna visited Numa, &c. The last of these formed ROMA. 757 the entrance to Numa's regia, as we learn from Plutarch (de Fort. Rom. 10). Among the arches of aqueducts to which the name of gate was applied, may perhaps be ranked that alluded to by Martial (iv.18):- " Qua vicina pluit Vipsanis porta columnis," &c. Respecting the gates called Ferentina and Piacu- L.Ris we have before offered a conjecture. [See p. 728.] The Porta Metia rests solely on a false read- ing of Plautus. (Cos. ii. 6. 2, Psettd. i. 3. 97.) On the other hand, a Porta Catularia seems to have really existed, which is mentioned by Paulus Dia- conus (p. 45; cf. Festus, p. 285) in connection with certain sacrifices of red-coloured dogs. This must be the sacrifice alluded to by Ovid (^Fast. iv. 905), in which the entrails of a dog were offered by the flamen in the Lucus Robiginis. It is also mentioned in the Fasti Praenestini, vii. Kal. Mai, which date agrees with Ovid's: " Fe- riae Robigo Via Claudia, ad miliarium v., ne ro- bigo frumentis noceat." But this is at variance first, with Ovid, who was returning to Rome by the Via Nomentana, not the Via Claudia, and, secondly, with itself, since the Via Claudia did not branch off from the Via Flaminia till the 10th milestone, and, consequently, no .sacrifice could be performed on it at a distance of 5 miles from Rome. However this discrepancy is to be reconciled, it can hardly be supposed that one of the Roman gates derived its name from a trifling rustic sacrifice ; unless, indeed, it was a duplicate one, used chiefly with reference to sacerdotal customs, as seems to have been some- times the case, and in the present instance to denote the gate leading to the spot where the annual rite was performed. Paulus Diaconus also mentions (p. 37) a Porta Collatina, which he aflirms to have been so called after the city of Collatia, near Rome. But when we reflect that both the Via Tiburtina and the Via Praenestina issued from the Porta Esquilina, and that a road to Collatia must have run between them, the impossibility of a substantive Porta Collatina is at once apparent. TheDu(»DECiM Portae are placed by Bunsen (Beschr. i. p. 633) in the wall of the Circus Maximus; but as it appears from Pliny (I. c.) that they stood on the ancient line of wall, and as we have shown that this did not make part of the wall of the circus, this could not have been their situation. We do not see the force of Piale's celebrated discovery that the Duodecini Portae must have been a place at Rome, because Julius Obsequens says that a mule brought forth there; which it might very well have done at one of the gates. Becker's opinion (Ilandh. p. 180) that it was an arch, or arches, of the Aqua Appia seems as unfounded as that of Bunsen (vide Prelier, Regioncn, p. 193). It is mentioned by the iXotilia in the 11th Regio, and therefore probably stood somewhere near the Aventine ; but its e.xact site cannot be determined. It seems probable, as Prelier remarks, that it may have derived its name from being a complex of twelve arched thoroughfares like the 'EvfeaTrvKof of the Pelasgicon at Athens. Transtlberine Wall. — Ancus Jlarcius, as we have related, fortified the Janiculum, or hill on the right bank of the Tiber commanding the citv. Some have concluded from Livy (i. 33: "janiculum quoque adjectum, non inopia locorum, sed ne quando ea arx hostium pssct. Id non nuiro solum, sed etiam ob connnoditatem itineris ponte Sublicio turn prinium in Tibcri facto conjungi urbi 3c 3