mately included the whole of the Pincian Hill, on which was originally a detached fort, but it was included by Sylla in his enlargement of the city and the pomarium®. The surface of the Tarpeian rock was divided into three parts, the two raised parts at the ends already mentioned and the intermontium, on the lower level between them, which slopes down towards the Tiber: in this was afterwards made the Forum Montinarium, now called the Piazza del Campidoglio h. The Palatine and Capitol together formed the heart of the city of Rome, to which the other hills or mounts were added one by one as required by the increase in the number of inhabitants and of their horses, and flocks, and herds. Of the GATES, the Porta Saturni, mentioned by Livy and Dionysius, was probably the entrance to the Capitol, or Mons Saturni, at the top of the clivus, on the southern side. The Porta Carmentalis and Flumentana, mentioned by several authors, were on the lower level, near the Tiber, but as these belong rather to the line of fortification made by Servius Tullius, they will be spoken of more at length in Section VIII. of this chapter. The name of Capitolium is used in several senses by Livy and Dionysius, and is further described in another part of this work relating to the Forum Romanum, with which it is so closely conThe hill of Saturn, afterwards called the Capitoline Hill, was in the possession of the Sabines until the two hills were united in one city, and enclosed by one wall. The name Capitolium is sometimes given also to the arx with the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in it, as well as the great public building that contained all the offices of the united city during the whole time of the Republic: under the Early Empire some of them were removed to the Palatine Hill, in what are called the Palaces of the Cæsars; just as, in London, Somerset-house was originally a palace, but is now occupied wholly by public offices. See the account of the cippi of the pomarium in the Appendix; one of them was found outside of the Porta del Popolo, or Flaminia, and therefore outside of the line of the Pincian, and this had been restored by Augustus. Some good antiquarians consider that this primitive market-place was not in the Piazza del Campidoglio, in the open space at the top of the hill, which is the same as the Area Capitolina of Aulus Gellius, but was at the foot of the hill on the northern side, now called the Piazza di Ara Cœli. SECTION V. THE AVENTINE, [ADDED A.U.C. 30 (?), B.C. 723 (?)]. THE Aventine Hill was protected on its north-western side by the Tiber, with a narrow strip of land between the hill and the river; on the north-east by the lake or marsh, on which the Circus Maximus was afterwards made. On the south and west by the scarped cliffs and a wall. The south-eastern portion is separated from the main hill by a valley and large foss, and is called the Pseudo-Aventine. On this Pseudo-Aventine i stand the monastery of S. Sabba to the west and S. Balbina to the east; and these occupy the sites of what were no doubt the southern fortresses, which defended the approaches to the city by the Via Ostiensis, the Via Ardeatina, and the Via Appia. There are remains of the tufa walls of the Kings on the east and north sides of this part of the Aventine. The west side is a scarped cliff with the wall of Aurelian built up against it. The great foss round these three sides is very visible, and the Porta Ostiensis or S. Paolo, is made in this foss. On the south side the earth has been thrown up against the cliff or over it, to make a slope to the sun for the purpose of cultivation, and this line of distinction is nearly obliterated. The Aventine was taken possession of at a very early period in the history of Rome, but as pasture ground only, and was at first only slightly fortified. It was much covered with wood, and was celebrated for its laurel groves. Dionysius and Pliny mention the laurel groves, and that it was called Loretum or Lauretum. k "First he [Ancus Martius] added considerably to the extent of the city by enclosing within the walls what is called the Aventine. This is a hill of moderate height full eighteen stadia in circuit, which then was covered with every kind of wood, the most numerous and beautiful being the laurel,-for which reason a certain part of it is called Lauretum by the Romans, but now it is quite full of houses. There, along with many others, a temple of Diana is erected'." Aulus Gellius speaks of it as without the pomarium, even down to his own time. It is evident that the original meaning of this This name is said to have been given by Nibby to that part of the Aventine Hill which is detached from the rest by the wide and deep via-fossa, through which runs the Via di Porta S. Paolo. It is the name now com monly used, and is convenient. J Numitor's oxen were stationed on the Aventine Hill. (Dionys. Halic.. Ant., lib. ii. c. 79, 84.) Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. xv. cap. 40. 1 Dionys. Halic., Ant., lib. iii. c. 43. word, as part of the fortifications of the Kings, had been lost sight. of in the time of the Empire. "It has been asked, and is still asked, why the Aventine alone, out of the seven hills of the city, should be without the pomærium, while the other six are within it, considering it is neither far off, nor thinly inhabited : for neither Servius Tullius nor Sylla, who had obtained the right of advancing the line of the pomœrium, nor even afterwards did the divine Julius, when he could have advanced the pomarium, include it within the prescribed bounds of THE CITY "." Livy says that it was inhabited by the Latins after the capture of Politorium by Ancus Martius, B.C. 630"; and Dionysius refers to the same. The fortifications were probably made by these Latins, and the remains of walls against the cliffs may very well be of that period, and it was certainly included within the circuit of the walls of the city in the time of Servius Tullius for strategical reasons, who always made use of the walls already existing as far as they came in the same line to enclose THE CITY. Beginning then at the Tiber, near the Sublician bridge, the edge of the hill was strongly fortified with a wall against the cliff, of which there are remains overhanging the Tiber under the monastery of S. Sabina, and accessible from the gardens of that establishment. There are other remains of the same wall against the cliff further on to the south, near the corner where the cliff turns round to the east. Near the Porta Ostiensis, now di S. Paolo, in the vineyard of the Jesuits of the Collegio Romano, now of Prince Torlonio, a considerable part of this wall has been excavated. All these walls on the Aven "Propterea quæsitum est, ac nunc etiam in quæstione est, quam ob causam ex septem urbis montibus, cum ceteri sex intra pomoerium sint, Aventinus solum, quæ pars non longinqua nec infrequens est, extra pomoerium sit: neque id Ser. Tullius rex, neque Sulla, qui proferundi pomoerii titulum quæsivit, neque postea Divus Julius, cum pomoerium proferret, intra effatos urbis fines incluserint." (Aulus Gellius, lib. xiii. c. 14.) "Sed de Aventino monte prætermittendum non putavi, quod non pridem ego in Elidis, grammatici veteris, commentario offendi: in quo scriptum erat Aventinum antea, sicuti diximus, extra pomoerium exclusum, post auctore Divo Claudio receptum, et intra pomarii fines observatum." (Ibid.) This passage may bear two interpretations, either that this hill was so slightly fortified in the first instance that no outer agger and foss was made round it until the time of Claudius, about which time the fortifications were evidently extended and strengthened, or only that the Augural rites had not been performed, and therefore it was not in a technical sense included within the boundary of the city, although for defence the walls of the city encompassed it. n Livii Hist., i. 33. See a paper on this subject by Cardinal Wiseman in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature for 1856, and an article in the "Dublin Review," 1857. The portion of the wall there described may still be seen, and has since been further excavated. S. Sabina is on the highest part of the Aventine, and Mr. Burn states that there is a bed of travertine on this part above the tufa, of which the rest of the hill is composed. In the cave under this there is a level bed of white clay, which seems to lie under the tufa. SECT. V.] The Aventine. 63 tine are rather different from the one in the agger of Servius Tullius on the Esquiline, and may have been the work of the Latins in the time of Ancus Martius, as said before. This Wall of the Kings is built of blocks of yellow tufa from the Cœlian, rudely hewn out of the rock, and squared with the hatchet; the blocks are fitted closely together, in some parts mortar is used, in other parts none, in the facing. There are several yards of this wall, which is twelve feet thick and fifty feet high, built against the cliff. The wall has been extensively repaired in the time of Camillus, and there is an arch of his time, and part of a second, of sawn stone inserted into the old wall, for what purpose is not clear P. Descending into the valley from near this point, and following the line of the hill further to the south, an agger was carried by Servius Tullius across the hollow, from below S. Prisca to below S. Sabba; a portion of the ancient foss belonging to the agger remains open at the point where it is intercepted by the road from the Porta Ostiense. This has a medieval pavement, having been retained at that point to give access to a stone quarry; it is like the dry bed of a canal with vertical cliffs, and the pavement is twenty feet below the level of the modern road by the side of it. In the vineyard of S. Sabba, the old paved road has been found at a considerable depth, that is, at the bottom of the foss; and the agger on the brow of the hill can be distinctly seen in this vineyard, extending nearly to S. Balbina, which is another fortified monastery on the line of the old fortifications already mentioned, with the pomarium on the slope, and the foss at the bottom of it, though this has been afterwards partially obliterated by a corner of the Thermæ of Caracalla. The valley grows gradually narrower as it approaches the point where an agger and a foss were carried across the short space, connecting the fortifications of the Aventine on the west with those of the Colian on the east. In this agger the Porta Capena was made, which for a long period was the chief entrance to the city of Rome on the southern side. The fortifications all along the cliff of the hill, on the line of the river, have been rebuilt in the Middle Ages, but upon the old foundations, which may be seen below them in many places, and the tufa wall against the face of the cliff has to a great extent been covered over and concealed by brick walls of the time of the Empire. P Further excavations were made here in 1870, and behind the arches which are inserted in the face of the tufa wall, is a mass of concrete wall, so that in this part the facing only is of the large blocks of tufa. It is conjectured by Visconti (apparently with reason) that a balista or catapult was placed behind these arches, which served as embrasures through which the stones were thrown. (See Regio XII.) SECTION VI. THE CŒLIAN, ADDED A.U.C. 147, B.C. c. 650. THE Cœlian is said by Terentius Varro to have been named after Cœlius Vibenna, a Tuscan leader, who with his band supported Romulus against King Tatius, and was with his followers located on the Cœlian as a reward. "In a part of the Suburan district the chief hill is the Cœlian, [so called] from Cœlius Vibenna, a noble Tuscan general, who is said to have given aid with his army to Romulus against King Tatius; hence, after the death of Coelius, because these Tuscans held too strong a position, and were somewhat suspected, they were removed to the lower ground, and the street was called from them Vicus Tuscus *." "From a leader who came from Etruria, and whose name was Cœlius; the hill on which he settled is called the Coelian to this day." This hill is said by Livy and some writers to have been added to the city by Tullus Hostilius, who resided on it himself to encourage others to do so, B.C. 650; by Strabo and other writers the addition is attributed to Ancus Marcius. "Meanwhile, from the destruction of Alba, Rome received a considerable augmentation, the number of citizens was doubled, the Colian mount was added to the city; and in order to induce others to fix their habitations there, Tullus chose that situation for his palace, where, from thenceforth, he resided "." "And that none might be without a place to dwell in, he included within the fortifications of the city the Coelian hill *." "Ancus Marcius, when he took in the Cœlian hill and the Aventine, separated as they were from each other, and from the other fortifications of the city, acted from necessity in adding them. For neither was it expedient to leave such strong hills without the wall to serve as positions for attacking the city to any that wished it, nor was he able to complete the whole wall as far as the Quirinal "." The name of the Cœlian Hill is applied sometimes to the ground extending eastward as far as the wall of the Empire, and is made to include both the Lateran and the Sessorium. The Lateran is, however, separated from it by a valley and a foss, which has most probably been cut at some very early period. It was not included in the Wall of the Kings, but was a detached fortress by the side of the city. There is another distinct foss between the high ground of the Lateran and that of the Sessorium, but across it there is an agger or bank The ancient name of the hill was Querquetulanus, from its being covered with oaks, as that of the Aventine was Murcus, from its having been covered with myrtles. "In Suburanæ regionis parte princeps est Coelius mons, a Cœlio Vibenno Tusco duce nobili, qui cum sua manu dicitur Romulo venisse auxilio contra Tatium regem: hinc post Cœlii mortem, quod nimis munita loca tenerent neque sine suspicione essent, deducti dicuntur in planum. Ab eis dictus vicus Tuscus." (Terentius Varro, lib. v. § 46.) Dionys., lib. ii. c. 36. u Livii Hist., lib. i. c. 30. |