Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/779

 ROMA. 864). When it obtained its present name cannot be determined ; its ancient one vras undoubtedly derived from the Via Flaminia, which it spanned. In the time of Procopius, and indeed long; before, the wall to the east had bent outwards from the effects of the pressure of the Pincian hill, whence it was called murus fractus or inclinatus, just as it is now called mm-o torto. (Procop. B. G. i. 23.) The next gate, proceeding always to the right, was the Porta Pinciana, before mentioned, which was already walled up in the time of the Anonymous of Einsiedlen. It of course de- rived its name from the hill on which it stood. Belisarius had a house near this gate (Anastas. Silverio, pp. 104, 106) ; and either from this circumstance, or from the exploits performed be- fore it by Belisarius, it is supposed to have been also called Belisaria, a name which actually occurs in one or two passages of Procopius (B. G. i. 18, 22 ; cf. Nibby, Mura, cfc p. 248). But the Salaria seems to have a better claim to this second appella- tion as the gate which Belisarius himself defended; though it is more probable that there was no such name at all, and that BeMffapia in the passages cited is only a corruption of SaXapi'a. (Becker, (k lUwis, p. 115 ; Urlichs in Class. Mus. vol. iii. p. 196.) Respecting the two gates lying between the Porta Pinciana and the Praetorian camp there can be no doubt, as they stood over, and derived their names from, the Via Salaria and Via Nomentana. In earlier times both these roads issued from the Porta CoUina of the Servian wall ; but their divergence of course rendered two gates necessary in a wall drawn with a longer radius. The Porta Salaria still sub- sists with the same name, although it has undergone a restoration. Pius IV. destroyed the Porta Nomen- tana, and built in its stead the present Porta Pla. The inscription on the latter testifies the destruction of the ancient gate, the place of which is marked with a tablet bearing the date of 1564. A little to the SE. of this gate are the walls of the Castra Praetoria, projecting considerably beyond the rest of the line, as Aurelian included the camp in his forti- fication. The Porta Decumana, though walled up, is still visible, as well as the Principales on the sides. The gates on the eastern tract of the Aurelian walls have occasioned considerable perplexity. On this side of the city four roads are mentioned, the Tiburtina, Collatina, Praenestina, and Labicana, and two gates, the Porta Tiburtina and Praenestina. But besides these gates, which are commonly thought to coiTCspond with the modern ones of S. Lorenzo and Porta Maggiore, there is a gate close to the Prae- torian camp, about the size of the Pinciana, and re- sembling the Honorian gates in its architecture, which has been walled up from time immemorial, and is hence called Porta Clausa, or Porta Chiusa. The difficulty lies in determining which were the ancient Tiburtina and Praenestina. The whole question has been so lucidly stated by Jlr. Bunbury that we cannot do better than borrow his words: " It has been generally assumed that the two gates known in modern times as the Porta S. Lorenzo and the 2'orta Maggiore are the same as were ori- ginally called respectively the Porta Tiburtina and Praenestina, and that the roads bearing the same appellations led from them directly to the important towns from which they derived their name. It is admitted on all hands that they appear under these ROMA. 759 names In the A nongmus ; and a comparison of two passages of Procopius {B. G. i. 19, lb. p. 96) would appear to lead us to the same result. In the former of these Procopius speaks of the part of the city attacked by the Goths as comprising jive gates (TTuAat), and extending from the Flamiman to the Praenestine. That he did not reckon the Pinciana as one of these seems probable, from the care with which, in the second passage referred to, he dis- tinguishes it as a TTi/Ais, or minor gate. Supposing the closed gate near the Praetorian camp to have been omitted for the same reason, we have just the five re- quired, viz., Flaminia, Salaria, Nomentana, Tiburtina {Porta S. Lorenzo'), and Praenestina {Maggiore). On this supposition both these ancient ways (the Tiburtina and Praenestina) must have issued origi- nally from the Esquiline gate of the Servian walls. Now we know positively from Straho that the Via Praenestina did so, as did also a third road, the Via Labicana, which led to the town of that name, and afterwards rejoined the Via Latina at the station called Ad Pictas (v. p. 237). Strabo, on the other hand, does not mention from what gate the road to Tibur issued in his time. Niebuhr has therefore followed F'abretti and Piale in assuming that the latter ori- ginally proceeded from the Porta Viminalis, which, as we have seen, stood in the middle of the agger of Servius, and that it passed through the walls of Aurelian by means of a gate now blocked up, but still extant, just at the angle where those walls join on to the Castra Praetoria Assuming this to have been the original Tiburtina, Niebuhr (followed by MM. Bunsen and Urlichs) considers the Porta S. Lorenzo to have been the Praenestina, and the Porta Maggiore to have been the Labicana; but that when the gate adjoining the Praetorian camp was blocked up, the road to Tivoli was transferred to the Porta S. Lorenzo, and that to Praeneste to the gate next in order, which thus acquired the name of Praenestina instead of its former one of Labicana {Be^chreibung, i. p. 657, seq). To this suggestion there appear to be two principal objections brought forward by M. Becker, neither of which M. Urlichs has answered: the first, that, sup- posing the Via Tiburtina to have been so transferred, which taken alone might be probable enough, there is no apparent reason why the Via Praenestina should have been also shifted, instead of the two thenceforth issuing together from the same gate, and diverging immediately afterwards ; and secondly, that there is no authority for the existence of such a gate called the Labicana at all. The passage of Strabo, already cited, concerning the Via Labicana, certainly seems to imply that that road in his time separated from the Praenestina immediately after leaving the Esquiline gate; but there is no impro- bability in the suggestion of M. Becker, that its course was altered at the time of the construction of the new walls, whether under Aurelian or Honorius, in order to avoid an unnecessary increase of the number of gates. iMany .such changes in the di- rection of the principal roads may have taken place at that time, of which we have no account, and on which it is impossible to speculate. Wcstphal, in his Rumische Campagne {^. 78), has adopted nearly the same view of the case: but he considers the Via Labicana to have originally had a gate .assigned to it, which was afterwards walled up, and the road carried out of the same gate with the Via Praenes- tina. The only real difficulty in the ordinary view of the subject, supported by M. Becker, appears to 30 4