Porta Ratumena
The Porta Ratumena (also porta Ratumenna and Rutumanna ) was an ancient gate in Rome .
The gate is mentioned several times in the ancient tradition and was connected to the Capitol in an unspecified way . According to legend, the gate was named after an Etruscan charioteer named Ratumena. His four-team went through a race in Veji after a victorious drive and drove to Rome without being stopped. Once there, the horses threw the man out of the wagon at the gate that was later named after him and killed him. Then the team went on and stopped only after it made of terracotta shaped Quadriga of the Capitoline temple of Jupiter had been reached.
A connection with the surrounding wall of the Capitoline Area is possibly derived from the spatial relationship of the legend set in the early republic. It was therefore not a question of a city gate. Nevertheless, there were suggestions to identify the porta Ratumena with the porta Fontinalis . The remains of the gate are not preserved.
literature
- Samuel Ball Platner , Thomas Ashby : A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome . Oxford University Press, London 1929, p. 414 ( online ).
- Lawrence Richardson Jr .: A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome . Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1992, pp. 307-308.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sextus Pompeius Festus 275 ( online ); Pliny the Elder , Naturalis historia 8, 161 ; Plutarch , Poblicola 13 ; Solinus 45, 15 .