Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/778

 753 ROM A. placuit"), that a wall was built from the fortress on the top of the hill down to the river, but the construction of conjungi in this passage may be a zeugma. It seems strange that Ancus should have built a wall on the right bank of the Tiber when there was yet none on the left bank ; and it is remarkable that Dionysius (iii.45), in describing the fortification of the Janiculum, makes no mention of a wall, nor do we hear of any gates on this side except that of the fortress itself. The existence of a wall, moreover, seems hardly consistent with the accounts which we have already given from the same author of the de- fenceless state of the city on that side. Niebuhr (Uiat. i. p. 396) rejected the notion of a wall, as utterly erroneous, but unfortunately neglected to give the proofs by which he had arrived at this con- clusion. The passage from Appiau {KKavSioy 5' "ATrTriof x'^'apX"" Teixo^w^a'^oOrTa T^r 'Poj/xrjs rhv AoKpov Tov KaXovjXivov 'IclvovkKov eii trore va- Oovra vcj>' iauTou Ti}y ev(pyf(j(as a.vaixvi]ffas 6 Mtipior, is tV toMv (ariAdiv, inravoix^da-qs aur^ ■niiArjs, B.C. i. 68) which Becker (p. 182, note) seems to regard as decisive proves little or nothing for the earlier periods of the city ; and, even had there been a wall, the passing it would not have afforded an entrance into the city, properly so called. II. Walls and Gates of Aurelian and HONORIUS. In the repairs of the wall by Honorius all the gates of Aurelian vanished ; hence it is impossible to say with confidence that any part of Aurelian's wall remains ; and we must consider it as represented by that of Honorius. Procopius {B. G. iii. 24) asserts that Totila destroyed all the gates; but this is dis- proved by the inscriptions still existing over the Porta S. Lorenzo, as well as over the closed arch of the Porta Maggiore ; and till the time of Pope Urban VIII. the same inscription might be read over the Ostiensis (P. S. Paolo) and the ancient Portuensis. It can hardly be imagined that these inscriptions should have been preserved over restored gates. The only no- tice respecting any of the gates of Aurelian on which we can confidently rely is the account given by Am- mianus Marcellinus (xvii. 4. § 14) of the carrying of j the Egyptian obelisk, which Constantius II. erected in the Circus Maximus, through the Porta Ostiensis. It may be assumed, however, that their situation was not altered in the new works of Honorius. By far the greater part of these gates exist at the pre- sent day, though some of them are now walled up, and in most cases the ancient name has been changed for a modern one. Hence the problem is not so much to discover the sites of the ancient gates as the ancient names of those still existing; and these do not admit of much doubt, with the exception of the gates on the eastern side of the city. Procopius, the principal authority respecting the gates in the Aurelian (or Honorian) wall, enume- rates 14 principal ones, or irvAai, and mentions some smaller ones by the name of iruKiSes {B. G. i. 19). The distinction, however, between these two appellations is not very clear. To judge from their present appearance, it was not determined by the size of the gates; and we find the Pinciana in- differently called TTuAi's and ttu'At/. (Urlichs, Class. Mas. vol. iii. p. 196.) The conjecture of iSiibby (^Mura, <|c. p. 317) may perhaps be correct, that the TruAai were probably thi>se which led to the great high- w-ays. The unknown writer called the Anonymus Einsiedlensis, who flourished about the beginning of liOJIA. the ninth century, also mentions 14 gates, and in- cludes the Pinciana among them ; but his account is not clear. Unlike Servius, Aurelian did not consider the Tiber a sufficient protection; and his walls were extended along its banks from places opposite to the spots where the walls which he built from the Janiculum began on the further shore. The wall which skirted the Campus Martius is considered to have commenced not far from the Palazzo Farnese, from remains of walls on the right bank, supposed to have belonged to those of the Janiculum; but all traces of walls on the left bank have vanished beneath the build- ings of the new town. It would appear that the wails on the right and left banks were connected by means of a bridge on the site of the present Ponte Sisto — which thus contributed to form part of the defences; since the arches being secured by means of chains drawn before them, or by other contrivances, would prevent an enemy from passing through them in boats into the interior of the city : and it is in this manner that Procopius describes Belisarius as warding off the attacks of the Goths (B. G. i. 19). From this point, along the vchole extent of the Campus Martius, and as far as the Porta Flamiuia, the walls appear, with the exception of some small posterns mentioned by the Anonymous of Einsiedlen to have had only one gate, which is repeatedly mentioned by Procopius under the name of Porta Aurelia ^ (B.C. i.e. 19, 22,28); though he seems to have been ■ acquainted with its later name of Porta Sti Petri, by which it is called by the Anonymous (/6. iii. 36). It stood on the left bank, opposite to the entrance of the Pons Aelius (Ponte di S. Angela), leading to the mausoleum of Hadrian. The name of Aurelia is found only in Procopius, and is somewhat puz- zling, since there was another gate of the same name in the Janiculum, spanning the Via Aurelia, which, however, is called by Procopius (/6. i. 18) by its modern name of Pancratiana ; whilst on the other hand the Anonymous appears strangely enough to know it only by its ancient appellation of Aurelia. The gate by the bridge, of which no trace now re- mains, may possibly have derived its name from a Nova Via Aurelia (Gruter, Inscr. cccclvii. 6), which passed through it; but there is a sort of mystery hanging over it which it is not easy to clear up. (Becker, Handb. p. 196, and note.) The next gate, proceeding northwards, was the Porta Flaminia, which stood a little to the east of the present Porta del Popolo, erected by Pope Pius IV. in 1561. The ancient gate probably stood on the declivity of the Pincian (eV x'^PV KprifivdoSet, Procop. B. G. i. 23), as the Goths did not attack it from its being difficult of access. Yet Anasta- sius ( Vit. Gregor. II.) describes it as exposed to inundations of the Tiber; whence Nibby (^Mura, Sfc. p. 304) conjectures that its site was altered be- tween the time of Procopius and Anastasius, that is, between the sixth and ninth centuries. Nay, in a great inundation which happened towards the end of the eighth century, in the pontificate of Adrian I., the gate was carried away by the flood, which bore it as far as the arch of M. Aurelius, then called Tres Faccicellae, and situated in the Via Flaminia, where the street called della Vite now runs into the Corso. (^Ib). The gate appears to havo retained its ancient name of Flaminia as late as the 15th century, as appears from a Ufe of Martin V. in Muratori (^ScrijH. Per. Ital. t. iii. pt. ii. col.