Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/833

 ROMA. There was also a Velabrum Minus, which it is natural to suppose was not far distant from the Velabrum Majus. Varro says that there was in the Velabrum Minus a lake or pond formed from a hot spring called Lautolab, near the temple of Janus Geminus (76. § 156); and Paulus Diaconus (p. 118) describes the Latulae as being "locus extra urbem." Hence it would seem that the Janus Geuiinus alluded to by Varro, must have been the temple near the Porta Carmentalis ; but both the spring and the lake had vanished in the tune of Varro, and were no longer anything but matters of antiquity. The Arcus Argentarius already mentioned as standing near the church of S. Giorgio in Velabro ap- pears, from the inscription, to have been erected by the Negotiantes and Argentarii of the Forum Boarium in honour of Septimius Severus and his family. (Gruter, cclxv. 2; Orell. 913.) Properly speaking, it is no arch, the lintel being horizontal instead of vaulted. It is covered with ill-executed sculptures. Close to it stands the large square building called Janus Quadrifrons, vaulted in the interior, and having a large archway in each front. The building had an upper story, which is said to have been used for mercantile purposes. The architecture belongs to a declining period of art, and the arch seems to have been constructed with fragments of other build- higs, as shown by the inverted bas-reliefs on some of the pieces. {Beschr. iii. p. 339.) The Notitia closes the description of Eegio xi. by mentioning an " Arcus Constantini," which cannot, of course, refer to the triumphal arch on the other side of the Palatine. The conjecture of Bunsen, therefore (Beschr. Anh. iii. p. 663), does not seem impro- bable, that this Janus was meant; and from its style of architecture it might very well belong to the time of Constantine. The Forum Boarium, one of the largest and most celebrated plaoes in Rome, appears to have ex- tended from the Velabrum as far as the ascent to the Aventine, and to have included in breadtli the whole space between the Palatine and Circus Maximus on the E. and the Tiber on the W. Thus it must not be conceived as a regular forum or market surrounded with walls or porticoes, but as a large irregular space determined either by natural boundaries or by those of other districts. Its connection with the river on the one side and the circus on the other is attested by the following lines of Ovid (^Fast. vi. 477) : — " Pontibus et Blagno juncta est celeberrima Circo Area quae posito de hove nomen habet." Its name has been variously derived. The referring of it to the cattle of Hercules is a mere poetical legend (Prop. v. 9. 17, seq.); and the derivation of it from the statue of a bronze bull captured at Aegina and erected in this place, though apparently more plausible, is equally destitute of foundation, since the name is incontestably much older than the Macedonian War. (Plin. xxsiv. 5 ; Ov. I. c. ; Tac. Ann. xii. 24.) It seems, therefore, most pro- bable, as Varro says (L.L. v. § 146; cf. Paul. Diac. p. 30), that it derived its name from the use to which it was put, namely, from being the ancient cattle-market; and it would appear from the in- scription on the Arcus Argentarius before alluded to that this trafEc still subsisted in the third cen- tury. The Forum Boarium was rich in temples and monuments of the ancient times. Amongst the most famous were those of Hercules, Fortuna, and ROMA. 813 Mater Matuta; but unfortunately the positions of them are not very precisely indicated. There seems to have been more than one Temple of Hercules in this district, since the notices which we meet with on the subject cannot possibly be all referred to the same temple. The most ancient and important one must have been that connected with the Magna Ara Herculis, which tradition represented as having been founded by Evander. (" Et magna ara fa- numque, quae praesenti Herculi Areas Evander sacra- verat," Tac. Ann. xv. 41; cf. lb. xii. 24; Solin. i. 10.) This appears to have been the Hercules styled triumphalis, whose statue, during the cele- bration of triumphs, was clothed in the costume of a triumphant general ; since a passage in Pliny con- nects it with that consecrated by Evander. (" Her- cules ab Evandro sacratus ut produnt, in Foro Boario, qui triumphalis vocatur atque per triumphos vestitur habitu triuniphali," x.xxiv. 16.) It was probably this temple of Hercules into which it was said that neither dogs nor flies could find admittance (lb. X. 41 ; Solin. i. 10), and which was adorned with a painting by Pacuvius the poet (Plin. xxxv. 7). A Round Temple of Hercules, also in the P'orum Boarium, seems to have been distinct from this, since Livy (x.23) applies apparently the epithet "rotunda" to it, in order to distinguish it from the other. (" Insignem supplicationem fecit certamen in sacello Pudicitiae Patriciae, quae in Foro Boario est ad aedem rotundam Herculis, inter matronas ortum.") Canina (^Indicazione, p. 338) assumes from this passage that the temple to which it refers must have been in existence at the time of the contest alluded to, namely, b. c. 297 ; but this, though a probable inference, is by no means an absolutely necessary one, since Livy may be merely indicating the locality as it existed in his own time. The former of these temples, or that of Hercules Trium- phalis, seems to be the one mentioned by Macrobius Sat. iu. 6) under the name of Hercules Victor ; and it appears from the same passage that there was another with the same appellation, though pro- bably of less importance, at the Porta Trigeniina. Besides these we hear of a " Hercules Invictus" by the Circus Maximus {Fast. Amitern; Prid. Id. Auff.^, and of another at the same place "in aede Pompeii Magni " (Plin. xxxiv. 8. s. 57), which seems to refer to some Aedes Herculis built or restored by Pompey, though we hear nothing more of any such temple. Hence there would appear to have been three or four temples of Hercules in the Forum Boarium. The conjecture of Becker seems not improbable that the remains of a round temple now existing at the church of S. Maria del Sole, commonly supposed to have belonged to a TEMPLE OF nERCULE3.