A Study of the Topography and Municipal History of Praeneste Part 3

BYBLIOTHECAE, C.I.L., XIV, 2916.

These seem to have been two small libraries of public and private law books.[135] They were in the Forum, as the provenience of the inscription shows.

CIRCUS, Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 75, n. 32.

Cecconi thought there was a circus at the bottom of the depression between Colle S. Martino and the hill of Praeneste. The depression does have a suspiciously rounded appearance below the Franciscan grounds, but a careful examination made by me shows no trace of cutting in the rock to make a half circle for seats, no traces of any use of the slope for seats, and no ruins of any kind.

CULINA, C.I.L., XIV, 3002.

This was a building of some consequence. Two quaestors of the city bought a s.p.a.ce of ground 148-1/2 by 16 feet along the wall, and superintended the building of a culina there. The ground was made public, and the whole transaction was done by decree of the senate, that is, it was done before the time of Sulla.

CURIA, C.I.L., XIV, 2924.

The fact that a statue was to be set up (ve)l ante curiam vel in porticibus for(i) would seem to imply that the curia was in the lower Forum. The inscription shows that these two places were undoubtedly the most desirable places that a statue could have. There is a possibility that the curia may be the basilica on the Corso terrace of the city. It has been shown that an open s.p.a.ce existed in front of the basilica, and that in it there is at least one basis for a statue. Excavations[136] at the ruins which were once thought to be the curia of ancient Praeneste showed instead of a hemicycle, a straight wall built on remains of a more ancient construction of rectangular blocks of tufa with three layers of pavement 4-1/2 feet below the level of the ground, under which was a tomb of brick construction, and lower still a wall of opus quadratum of tufa, certainly none of the remains belonging to a curia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE IV. The Sacra Via, and its turn round the upper end of the Basilica.]

FORUM, C.I.L., XIV, 3015.

The most ancient forum of Praeneste was inside the city walls. It was in this forum that the statue of M. Anicius, the famous praetor, was set up.[137] The writers. .h.i.therto, however, have been entirely mistaken, in my opinion, as to the extent of the ancient forum. For the old forum was not an open s.p.a.ce which is now represented by the Piazza Savoia of the modern town, as is generally accepted, but the ancient forum of Praeneste was that piazza and the piazza Garibaldi and the s.p.a.ce between them, now built over with houses, all combined. At the present time one goes down some steps in front of the cathedral, which was the basilica, to the Piazza Garibaldi, and it has been supposed that this open s.p.a.ce belonged to a terrace below the Corso. But there was no lower terrace there. The upper part of the forum simply has been more deeply buried in debris than the lower part.

One needs only to see the new excavations at the upper end of the Piazza Savoia to realize that the present ground level of the piazza is nearly nine feet higher than the pavement of the old forum. The accompanying ill.u.s.tration (plate IV) shows the pavement, which is limestone, not lava, that comes up the slope along the east side of the basilica,[138]

and turns round it to the west. A cippus stands at the corner to do the double duty of defining the limits of the basilica, and to keep the wheels of wagons from running up on the steps. It can be seen clearly that the lowest step is one stone short of the cippus, that the next step is on a level with the pavement at the cippus, and the next step level again with the pavement four feet beyond it. The same grade would give us about twelve or fifteen steps at the south end of the basilica, and if continued to the Piazza Garibaldi, would put us below the present level of that piazza. From this piazza on down through the garden of the Petrini family to the point where the existence of a Porta Triumphalis has been proved, the grade would not be even as steep as it was in the forum itself. Further, to show that the lower piazza is even yet accessible from the upper, despite its nine feet more of fill, if one goes to the east end of the Piazza Savoia he finds there instead of steps, as before the basilica, a street which leads down to the level of the Piazza Garibaldi, and although it begins at the present level of the upper piazza, it is not even now too steep for wagons. Again, one must remember that the opus quadratum wall which extends along the south side of the Corso does not go past the basilica, and also that there is a basis for a statue of some kind in front of the basilica on the level of the Piazza Garibaldi.

It is a question whether the ancient forum was entirely paved. The paving can be seen along the basilica, and it has been seen back of it,[139] but this pavement belongs to another hitherto unknown part of Praenestine topography, namely, a SACRA VIA. An inscription to an aurufex de sacra via[140] makes certain that there was a road in Praeneste to which this name was given. The inscription was found in the courtyard of the Seminary, which was the precinct of the temple of Fortuna. From the fact that this pavement is laid with blocks such as are always used in roads, from the cippus at the corner of the basilica to keep off wagon wheels, from the fact that this piece of pavement is in direct line from the central gate of the town, and last from the inscription and its provenience, I conclude that we have in this pavement a road leading directly from the Porta Triumphalis through the forum, alongside the basilica, then turning back of it and continuing round to the delubra and precinct of the temple of Fortuna Primigenia, and that this road is the SACRA VIA of Praeneste.[141]

At the upper end of the forum under the south facade of the temple, an excavation was made in April 1907,[142] which is of great interest and importance in connection with the forum. In Plate V we see that there are three steps of tufa,[143] and observe that the s.p.a.ce in front of them is not paved; also that the ascent to the right, which is the only way out of the forum at this corner, is too steep to have been ever more than for ascent on foot. But it is up this steep and narrow way[144]

that every one had to go to reach the terrace above the temple, unless he went across to the west side of the city.

The steps just mentioned are not the beginning of an ascent to the temple, for there were but three, and besides there was no entrance to the temple on the south.[145] Nor was the earlier temple much lower than the later one, for in either case the foundation was the rock surface of the terrace and has not changed much. Although these steps are of an older construction than the steps of the basilica, yet they were not covered up in late imperial times as is shown by the brick construction in the plate. One is tempted to believe that there was a Doric portico below the engaged Corinthian columns of the south facade of the temple.[146] But all the pieces of Doric columns found belong to the portico of the basilica. Otherwise one might try to set up further argument for a portico, and even claim that here was the place that the statue was set up, ante curiam vel in por ticibus fori.[147] Again, these steps run far past the temple to the east, otherwise we might conclude that they were to mark the extent of temple property. The fact, however, that a road, the Sacra Via, goes round back of the basilica only to the left, forces us to conclude that these steps belong to the city, not to the temple in any way, and that they mark the north side of the ancient forum.

The new forum below the city is well enough attested by inscriptions found there mentioning statues and buildings in the forum. The tradition has continued that here on the level s.p.a.ce below the town was the great forum. Inscriptions which have been found in different places on this tract of ground mention five buildings,[148] ten statues of public men,[149] the statue set up to the emperor Trajan on his birthday, September 18, 101 A.D.,[150] and one to the emperor Julian.[151] The discovery of two pieces of the Praenestine fasti in 1897 and 1903[152]

also helps to locate the lower forum.[153]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE V. The tufa steps at the upper end of the ancient Forum of Praeneste.]

The forum inside the city walls was the forum of Praeneste, the ally of Rome, the more pretentious one below the city was the forum of Praeneste, the Roman colony of Sulla.

IUNONARIUM, C.I.L., XIV, 2867.

Delbrueck follows Preller[154] in making the Iunonarium a part of the temple of Fortuna. It seems strange to have a statue of Trivia dedicated in a Iunonarium, but it is stranger that there are no inscriptions among those from Praeneste which mention Juno, except that the name alone appears on a bronze mirror and two bronze dishes,[155] and as the provenience of bronze is never certain, such inscriptions mean nothing.

It seems that the Iunonarium must have been somewhere in the west end of the temple precinct of Fortuna.

KASA CUI VOCABULUM EST FULGERITA, C.I.L., XIV, 2934.

This is an inscription which mentions a property inside the domain of Praeneste in a region, which in 385 A.D., was called regio Campania,[156] but it can not be located.

LACUS, C.I.L., XIV, 2998; Not. d. Scavi, 1902, p. 12. LAVATIO, C.I.L., XIV, 2978, 2979, 3015.

These three inscriptions were found in places so far from one another that they may well refer to three lavationes.

LUDUS, C.I.L., XIV, 3014.

See amphitheatrum.

MACELLUM, C.I.L., XIV, 2937, 2946.

These inscriptions were found along the Via degli Arconi, and from the fact that in 243 A.D. (C.I.L. XIV, 2972) there was a region (regio) by that name, I should conclude that the lower part of the town below the wall was called regio macelli. In Cecconi's time the city was divided into four quarters,[157] which may well represent ancient tradition.

MACERIA, C.I.L., XIV, 3314, 3340.

Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina, p. 87.

Ma.s.sA PRAE(NESTINA), C.I.L., XIV, 2934.

MURUS, C.I.L., XIV, 3002.

See above, pages 22 ff.

PORTA TRIUMPHALIS, C.I.L., XIV, 2850.

See above, page 32.

PORTICUS, C.I.L., XIV, 2995.

See discussion of temple, page 42.

QUADRIGA, C.I.L., XIV, 2986.

SACRARIUM, C.I.L., XIV, 2900.

SCHOLA FAUSTINIANA, C.I.L., XIV, 2901; C.I.G., 5998.