Porta Raudusculana
The Porta Raudusculana was an ancient city gate of the Servian Wall in Rome .
According to the enumeration of the gates by Marcus Terentius Varro , the porta Raudusculana immediately followed the porta Naevia . It would therefore be located in the eastern area of the Aventine . This is supported by a finding of inscriptions, which proves a vicus portae R (a) udusculanae for region XII . This vicus was probably an extension of the vicus piscinae Publicae , so that the gate was roughly where today's Viale Aventino and Via di San Saba meet. Today's Piazza Albania, which lies at this point, was called Piazza Raudusculana until 1940.
Various traditions exist for the derivation of the name. According to Varro, the gate was so named because it was made of bronze. According to Sextus Pompeius Festus , the name was either due to the raw, unworked state of the construction or, as with Varro, to the processing of bronze ore. A different explanation comes from Valerius Maximus . According to this, a portrait with bronze horns was attached to the gate in memory of the legendary Praetor Marcus Genucius Cipus , whose forehead is said to have grown out of his forehead at the time of the earliest republic when he approached the gate on his return from a victorious war. Augurs interpreted this as a sign of the royal dignity that he would receive when he entered the city. To avoid this, he was expelled from the city by the Senate . In his honor, however, his bronze image with the horns was placed on the gate, which is why it got its name, the bronze.
Even if the connection with this legend suggests that the porta Raudusculana was very old and that it was built at the same time as the Servian Wall, its name can probably only be traced back to a bronze paneling.
literature
- Filippo Coarelli : Rome. An archaeological guide. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 1981, ISBN 3-451-17247-X , p. 22.
- 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 MD et al. 1992, ISBN 0-8018-4300-6 , p. 308.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Marcus Terentius Varro, De lingua Latina 5, 163 : Sequitur Porta Naevia, quod in nemoribus Naeviis [...] Deinde Rauduscula, quod aerata fuit. [...] Hinc Lavernalis from ara Lavernae, quod ibi ara eius .
- ↑ CIL 6,975 .
- ↑ Sextus Pompeius Festus 275 ( online ).
- ↑ Valerius Maximus 5, 6, 3.
Coordinates: 41 ° 52 ′ 50.5 ″ N , 12 ° 29 ′ 3.5 ″ E