all hands that they appear under these names in the Anonymus; and a comparison of two passages of Procopius72 would appear to lead us to the same result. On this supposition both these ancient ways must have issued originally from the Esquiline gate of the Servian walls. Now we know positively from Strabo 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 Pictas73. Strabo, on the other hand, does not mention from what gate the road to Tibur issued in his time. Niebuhr has therefore followed Fabretti and Piale in assuming that the latter originally 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. It is remarkable that this gate, which is undefended by towers, but is of the same size as the other gates of Honorius, and would seem from the style of its construction certainly referable to the reign of that prince, is altogether unnoticed by the Anonymus, though he mentions the Porta Pinciana, notwithstanding its being already closed. Nor is there any passage in Procopius which is distinctly referable to it; that author, may, however have included it as one of the minor gates or uλídɛs, which he clearly distinguishes from the principal gates or wúλa, and among which he on several occasions ranks the Porta Pinciana. Assuming this to have been the original Tiburtina, Niebuhr (followed by MM. Bunsen and Urlichs) considers the Porta S. 72 B. G. 1. 19 and 96. In the former of these, he speaks of the part of the city | attacked by the Goths as comprising five gates (λa), and extending from the Flaminian to the Prænestine. 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 distinguishes it as a vλiç, or minor gate. Supposing the closed gate near the Prætorian camp to have been omitted for the same reason, we have just the five required, viz. Flaminia, Salaria, Nomentana, Tiburtina (Porta S. Lorenzo), and Praenestina (Maggiore). 73 Strabo, v. 3, § 9, p. 237: elra συμπίπτει (τῷ Λατίνη) καὶ ἡ Λαβικανὴ, ἀρχομένη μὲν ἀπὸ τῆς Ἐσκυλίνης πύλης, ἀφ ̓ ἧς καὶ ἡ Πραινεστίνη ἐν ἀριστερᾷ δ' ἀφεῖσα καὶ ταύτην καὶ τὸ πεδίον τὸ Ἐσκύλινον πρόεισιν ἐπὶ πλείους τῶν ῥ' καὶ κ' σταδίων......... τελευτᾷ δὲ πρὸς τὰς Πικτὰς καὶ τὴν Λατίνην. We must bear in mind that Strabo is here describing the Via Latina, not the gates of Rome, so that we cannot infer any thing from his omitting here to speak of the Via Tiburtina. Lorenzo to have been the Praenestina, and the Porta Maggiore, to have been the Labicana; but that when the gate adjoining the Prætorian 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 Labicana74. 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, supposing 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 a gate called the Porta 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 improbability 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 the unnecessary increase of the number of gates. Many such changes in the direction 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. Westphal in his Römische Campagne (p. 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 Praenestina. The only real difficulty in the ordinary view of the subject, supported by M. Becker, appears to be, that if the Via Tiburtina always issued from the Porta S. Lorenzo, we have no road to assign to the now closed gate adjoining the Prætorian camp, nor yet to the Porta Viminalis of the Servian walls, a circumstance certainly remarkable, as it seems unlikely that such an opening should have been made in the Agger without absolute necessity. On the other hand, the absence of all mention of that gate prior to the time of Strabo would lead one to suspect that it was not one of the principal outlets of the city; and a 74 Beschreibung, 1. p. 657, and foll. passage from Ovid, quoted by M. Becker, certainly affords some presumption that the road from Tibur in ancient times actually entered the city by the Porta Esquilina75. This is in fact the most important-perhaps the only important point of the question; for if the change in the names had already taken place as early as the time of Procopius, which Niebuhr himself seems disposed to acknowledge, it is hardly worth while to inquire whether the gates had borne the same appellations during the short interval from Honorius to Justinian. Some light may perhaps be thrown upon the subject by a careful examination of the different lines of roads issuing from the gates in question, though from the ground being now covered with gardens and vineyards, it is much to be feared that all traces of the ancient pavement have long since disappeared. I shall not enter into the question with regard to the different names given by Procopius and the Anonymus to the gates on the other side of the Tiber; but as it is here that all traces of the ancient boundaries of the city have disappeared, it may be as well to mention that in addition to the Transtiberine region -the portion comprised by two lines of wall running down from the heights of the Janiculus to the Tiber-the Mausoleum of Hadrian had already been converted into a fortress for the defence of the Ælian bridge, and a gate appears to have existed in the short line of wall which connected it with the river. It was here that the soldiers of Belisarius repulsed the assault of the Goths by hurling down on their heads the statues with which Hadrian had adorned his sepulchre. E. H. BUNBURY. (Will be completed in No. XI.) 75 In relating the legend of the flute- Et mane in medio plaustra fuere M. Urlichs disputes the force of this They certainly might, but how should 76 Beschreibung, 1. p. 659. This admission, however, seems quite inconsistent with the passage cited by him from Anastasius, which, if it proves any thing, must prove that the Via Praenestina still issued from the Porta S. Lorenzo as late as the period when the Porta Maggiore had already acquired its medieval appellation of Porta Sessoriana. APPENDIX. ON THE REGIONARII. Of the three little works usually known by the title of the Regionarii, the first published was that bearing the name of Publius Victor. Of this the first edition appeared at Venice about 1471 (it bears no date), under the auspices of the well-known scholar and antiquarian Janus Parrhasius. It was again published at Venice, in 1505, by Pietro Marino Aleandro, and in 1518, by Aldus, after which it was frequently reprinted, and inserted in various collections relating to Roman antiquities. In 1558, an enlarged edition of the same, with above a hundred additions or interpolations, was given to the world by the celebrated Onofrio Panvinio, as an appendix to the first book of his Commentaria Reipublicæ Romanæ. It is this enlarged catalogue (which Panvinio professes to have taken from an ancient MS.) that is reprinted by Grævius in his Thesaurus (tom. III. p. 37); but Panvinio also published, simultaneously with the last, a second catalogue, which now appeared for the first time, bearing the name of Sextus Rufus, and agreeing, in general plan and arrangement, as well as in a great majority of the details, with that of P. Victor, but differing from it in some points, and imperfect, some of the regions being wholly wanting, and others in a mutilated state. This, also, he states that he had printed from an ancient manuscript, furnished him by Antonio Agostino, to the lacunæ of which he naturally attributes the imperfection of the work. The third catalogue, which has now assumed a far more important character than it was formerly supposed to possess, was first published by Froben, at Basle, in 1552, together with the Notitia Dignitatum utriusque Imperii, which then appeared for the first time, and accompanied by a similar description of the city of Constantinople. It bears no name, but it is worthy of remark that it is called in the title-page, Descriptio Urbis Romæ quæ sub titulo Pub. Victoris circumfertur, though the slightest comparison with the list printed under that name would have shewn that the present work was far more meagre and concise. The same catalogue was reprinted, together with the Notitia, in 1593, with an elaborate commentary by Pancirolo (afterwards inserted by Grævius in his Thesaurus), and again by Labbe, at Paris, in 1651. Muratori afterwards inserted in the fourth volume of his Thesaurus Inscriptionum, a new edition of the same work, transcribed from a MS. in the Vatican, where it appears under the title, Curiosum Urbis Romæ, cum breviariis suis. This differs principally from the catalogues published by Pancirolo and Labbe, by the omission of many names which occur in them, and which we are therefor ecompelled to regard as later interpolations, the MS. published by Muratori, and which is still preserved in the Vatican, being unquestionably the most ancient of all, and dating (according to M. Bunsen) as far back as the beginning of the eighth century. It is this meagre and barren catalogue, of the authenticity of which no reasonable doubt can be entertained, however it may have been disfigured and corrupted by the ignorance of copyists—which is considered by M. Sarti to have formed the groundwork of the two far more copious, and apparently more satisfactory lists of P. Victor and S. Rufus. If we now examine the Curiosum itself in its earliest form, we find that it contains a simple enumeration of the most important public edifices and monuments at Rome, arranging them according to the division of the city into regions, and enumerating those of each subdivision with some approach at least to a topographical order of succession, apparently also with a view to mark clearly the limits of the particular region 77; after which it subjoins to each region the number of vici, ædes, vicomagistri, insulæ, domus, &c., ending with giving the circumference of the region itself in feet. In regard to a few only of the most important monuments, such as the Colosseum, the Colossus near it, the column of Trajan, &c., does it give a few descriptive details, such as "Colossum altum pedes CII. S. Habet in capite VII. radia singula pedum XXII. S."-" Templum Traiani et Columnam cochlidem altam pedes CXXVII. S. Grados intus habet CLXXX. fenestras XLV." But in no instance does it add any historical or antiquarian remarks. A few edifices or relics are indeed mentioned which belong to the earliest periods of Roman history, but they are uniformly such as we know from other sources to have been preserved down to a late period; such as the Casa Romuli or the Tigillum Sororium. It thus appears that this catalogue, though far from presenting to the topographer all that he might desire, has a definite scope and purpose, which it apparently fulfils, and from which it does not deviate. If, on the contrary, we turn to the supposed catalogues of P. Victor or Sextus Rufus, which present at the first glance a general similarity of arrangement, we are struck with the fact, that while they contain all that is found in the Curiosum, the other matter with which this is mingled is, for the most part, of a wholly different character, and that 77 This much, I think, may safely be admitted, though we must be careful not to place too much reliance on the order in which the buildings are enumerated,— an error into which M. Becker has occa sionally fallen, notwithstanding the instances which he has himself cited (De R. v. Muris, p. 12, not.) are sufficient to shew the necessity of caution. |