Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/845

 KOMA. this seems to have been the spot called by Martial the primae fauces of the Subura (ii. 17): — " Tonstrix Suburae faucibus sedet primis, Cruenta pendent qua flagella tortorum Argique letuni multus obsidet sutor." Juvenal (v. 106) represents the Cloaca Maxima as penetrating to the middle of the Subura, and this fact was established by excavations made in the year 1 743. (Ficoroni, Vestigia di Roma, ap. Bunbury, Class. Mus. vol. v. p. 219.) From its situation between the imperial fora and the eastern hills, the Subura must have been one of the most frequented thoroughfares in Eome ; and hence we are not surprised to find many allusions to its dirt and noise. It was the peculiar aversion of Juvenal,— a man, indeed, of many aversions (" Ego vel Prochytam praepono Suburae," Sat. iii. 5); a trait in his friend's character which had not escaped the notice of Martial (xii. 18): — •' Dum tu forsitan inquietus eiTas Clamosa, Juvenalis, in Subura." The epithet clamosa here probably refers to the cries of itinerant chapmen : for we learn from other passages in JIartial that the Subura was the chief place in which he used to market (vii. 31, x. 94, &c. ; cf. Juv. xi. 130, seq.) It appears also to have been the abode of prostitutes (vi. 66; comp. Hor. Epod. V. 58). It was therefore what is com- monly called a low neighbourhood: though some distinguished families seem to have resided in it, even Caesar himself in his early life (Sufit. Caes. 46), and in the time of JIartial, L. Arruntius Stella (xii. 3. 9). The Suburanenses, or inhabitants of the Subura, kept up to a late period some of the ancient customs which probably belonged to them when they formed a distinct village; especially an annual contest with the Sacravienses, or inhabitants of the Sacra Via, for the head of the horse sacrificed to Mars in the Campus Martins every October. If the Suburanenses gained the victory they fixed the head on a tower in the Subura called Turris Mamilia, whilst the Sacravienses, if successful, fixed it on the Regia. (Festus, s. v. October Equity, p. 178, MiilL; Paul. Diac. p. 131.) Throughout the time of the Republic the Esquiline appears to have been by no means a favourite or fasliionable place of residence. Part of it was occu- pied by the Campus Esquilinus, a place used as a burying-ground, principally for the very lowest class of persons, such as paupers and slaves ; w' hose bodies .seem to have been frequently cast out and left to rot here without any covering of earth. But under the Empire, and especially the later period of it, many jialaces were erected on the Esquiline. Maecenas was the first to improve it, by converting this field of death, and probably also part of the surrounding neighbourhood, — the pauper burial-ground itself apjjears to have been only 1000 feet long by 300 deep, — into an agreeable park or garden. Horace (S. i. 8. 14) mentions the laying out of these cele- brated HoRTi Maecenatis: — " Nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus atque Aggere in aprico spatiari, qua modo tristes Albis informem spectabant ossibus agrum." It appears from these lines that the Campus Esqui- linus adjoined the agger of Servius Tullius, which, by the making of these gardens, was converted into a clieerful promenade, from which people were no t;o:ma. 825 longer driven by the disgusting spectacle of mould- ering bones. The Campus Esquilinus being a cemetery, must of course have been on the outside of the agger, since it was not lawful to bury within the pomoerium; and VaiTo {L.L. v. § 25) mentions it as " ultra Exquilias," by which he must mean the Servian Region so called, which was bounded by the agger. Its situation is also determined by a passage in Strabo (v. p. 237), where the Via Labicana, which issued from the Esquiline gate at the south- ern extremity of the agger, is said to leave the campus on the left. It appears to have also been the place of execution for slaves and ignoble crimi- nals (Suet. Claud. 25; Tac. Ann. ii. 32, xv. 60; Plaut. Mil. ii. 4. 6, ed. Ritschl.). There does not seem to be any authority for Becker's assumption that the whole of the Esquiline outside of the Ser- vian walls was called Campus Esquilinus {Ilandh. p. 554), nor that after the laying out of the gardens of Maecenas the ancient place of execution was trans- ferred to the Sessorium, near S. Croce in Gerusa- lemme. Part of the campus was the field given, as the scholiast on Horace says, by some person as a burying-place. The Sessorium mentioned in the Excerpta Valesiana de Odoacre (69) was a palace; and though Theodoric ordered a traitor to be be- headed there it can hardly have been the ordinary place of execution for common malefactors. Besides the Sessorium mentioned by the schohasts on Horace {Epod. v. 100, Sat. i. 8. 11) was close to the Esquiline gate, a full mile from S. Croce, and seems, therefore, to have been another name for the Campus Esquilinus, if the scholiasts are right in calhng it Sessorium. The executions recorded in the passages before quoted from Suetonius and Tacitus took place long after the gardens of JIaecenas were made; yet when Tacitus uses the words " extra Portam Exqui- linam," there can be no doubt that he means just without the gate. It would be a wrong conception of the Horti Maecenatis to imagine that they resem- bled a private garden, or even a gentleman's park. They were a common place of recreation for the Roman populace. Thus Juvenal describes the agger as the usual resort of fortune-tellers. (5. vi. 588.) We see from the description of Horace that not even all the tombs had been removed. Canidia comes there to perform her incantations and evoke the manes of the dead; at sight of which infernal rites the moon hides herself behind the sepulchres (v. 35):— " lunamque rubentem, Ne foret his testis, post magna latere sepulcra." Such a place, therefore, might still have been used for executions ; though, doubtless, bodies were no longer exposed there, as they had formerly been. These " magna sepulcra " would also indicate that some even of the better classes were buried here ; and the same thing appears from Cicero. {Phil. ix. 7.) The Horti JIaecenatis probably extended within the agger towards the baths of Titus, and it was in this part that the House of Maecenas seems to have been situated. Close to these baths, on the NE. side, others, built by Trajan, existed in ancient times, although all traces of them have now vanished. They have sometimes been confounded with those of Titus ; but there can be no doubt that they were distiflct and separate foundations. Thus the Notitia mentions in the 3rd Region the " Thermae Titianao et Trajanae ;" and their distinction is also showu