THE GATES.
Strabo, in a well known passage,[57]speaks of Tibur and Præneste as two of the most famous and best fortified of the towns of Latium, and tells why Præneste is the more impregnable, but we have no mention of its gates in literature, except incidentally in Plutarch,[58]who says that when Marius was flying before Sulla's forces and had reached Præneste, he found the gates closed, and had to be drawn up the wall by a rope. The most ancient reference we have to a definite gate is to the Porta Triumphalis, in the inscription just mentioned, and this is the only gate of Præneste mentioned by name in classic times.
In 1353 A.D. we have two gates mentioned. The Roman tribune Cola di Rienzo (Niccola di Lorenzo) brought his forces out to attack Stefaniello Colonna in Præneste. It was not until Rienzo moved his camp across from the west to the east side of the plain below the town that he saw how the citizens were obtaining supplies. The two gates S. Cesareo and S. Francesco[59]were both being utilized to bring in supplies from the mountains back of the city, and the stock was driven to and from pasture through these gates. These gates were both ancient, as will be shown below. Again in 1448 when Stefano Colonna rebuilt some walls after the awful destruction of the city by Cardinal Vitelleschi, he opened three gates, S. Cesareo, del Murozzo, and del Truglio.[60]In 1642[61]two more gates were opened by Prince Taddeo Barberini, the Porta del Sole, and the Porta delle Monache, the former at the southeast corner of the town, the latter in the east wall at the point where the new wall round the monastery della Madonna degl'Angeli struck the old city wall, just above the present street where it turns from the Via di Porta del Sole into the Corso Pierluigi. This Porta del Sole[62]was the principal gate of the town at this time, or perhaps the one most easily defended, for in 1656, during the plague in Rome, all the other gates were walled up, and this one alone left open.[63]
The present gates of the city are: one, at the southeast corner, the Porta del Sole; two, near the southwest corner, where the wall turns up toward S. Martino, a gate now closed;[64]three, Porta S. Martino, at the southwest corner of the town; on the west side of the city, none at all; four, Porta S. Francesco at the northwest corner of the city proper; five, a gate in the arx wall, now closed,[65]beside the mediæval gate, which is just at the head of the depression shown in plate III, the lowest point in the wall of the citadel; on the east, Porta S. Cesareo, some distance above the town, six; seven, Porta dei Cappuccini, which is on the same terrace as Porta S. Francesco; eight, Portella, the eastern outlet of the Via della Portella; nine, a postern just below the Portella, and not now in use;[66]ten, Porta delle Monache or Santa Maria, in front of the church of that name. The most ancient of these, and the ones which were in the earliest circle of the cyclopean wall, are five in number: Porta S. Francesco,[67]the gate into the arx, Porta S. Cesareo,[68]Porta dei Cappuccini, and the postern at the corner where the early cyclopean cross wall struck the main wall.
The second wall of the city, which was rather an enlargement of the first, was cyclopean on the east as far as the present Porta del Sole, and either scarped cliff or opus quadratum round to Porta S. Martino, and up to Porta S. Francesco.[69]At the east end of the modern Corso, there was a gate, made of opus quadratum,[70]as is shown not only by the fact that this is the main street of the city, and on the terrace level of the basilica, but also because the mediæval wall round the monastery of the Madonna degl'Angeli, the grounds of the present church of Santa Maria, did not run straight to the cyclopean wall, but turned down to join it near the gate which it helps to prove. Next, there was a gate, but in all probability only a postern, near the Porta del Sole where the cyclopean wall stops, where now there is a narrow street which runs up to the piazza Garibaldi. On the south there was the gate which at some time was given the name Porta Triumphalis. It was at the place where now there is no wall at all.[71]At the southwest we find the next gate, the one which is now closed.[72]The last one of the ancient gates in this second circle of the city wall was one just inside the modern Porta S. Martino, which opened west at the end of the Corso. All the rest of the gates are mediæval.
A few words about the roads leading to the several gates of Præneste will help further to settle the antiquity of these gates.[73]The oldest road was certainly the trade route which came up the north side of the Liris valley below the hill on which Præneste was situated, and which followed about the line of the Via Prænestina as shown by Ashby in his map.[74]Two branch roads from this main track ran up to the town, one at the west, the other at the east, both in the same line as the modern roads. These roads were bound for the city gates as a matter of course and the land slopes least sharply where these roads were and still are. Another important road was outside the city wall, from one gate to the other, and took the slope on the south side of the city where the Via degli Arconi now runs.[75]
As far as excavations have proved up to this time, the oldest road out of Præneste is that which is now the Via della Marcigliana, along which were found the very early tombs. It is to be noted that these tombs begin beyond the church of S. Rocco, which is a long distance below the town. This distance however makes it certain that between S. Rocco and the city, excavation will bring to light other and yet older tombs along the road which leads up toward "l'antica porta S. Martino chiusa," and also in all probability rows of graves will be found along the present road to Cave. But the tombs give us the direction at least of the old road.[76]
There is yet another old road which was lately discovered. It is about three hundred yards below the city and near the road that cuts through from Porta del Sole to the church of Madonna dell'Aquila.[77]This road is made of polygonal stones of the limestone of the mountain, and hence is older than any of the lava roads. It runs nearly parallel with the Via degli Arconi, and takes a direction which would strike the Via Prænestina where it crosses the Via Prænestina Nuova which runs past Zagarolo. That is, the most ancient piece of road we have leads up to the southeast corner of the town, but the oldest tombs point to a road the direction of which was toward the southwest corner. However, all the roads lead toward the southeast corner, where the old grade began that went up above the arches, mentioned above, to a middle gate of the city.
The gate S. Francesco also is proved to be ancient because of the old road that led from it. This road is identified by a deposit of ex voto terracottas which were found at the edge of the road in a hole hollowed out in the rocks.[78]
The two roads which were traveled the most were the ones that led toward Rome. This is shown by the tombs on both sides of them,[79]and by the discovery of a deposit of a great quantity of ex voto terracottas in the angle between the two.[80]
THE WATER SUPPLY OF PRÆNESTE.
In very early times there was a spring near the top of Monte Glicestro. This is shown by a glance back at plate III, which indicates the depression or cut in the hill, which from its shape and depth is clearly not altogether natural and attributable to the effects of rain, but is certainly the effect of a spring, the further and positive proof of the existence of which is shown by the unnecessarily low dip made by the wall of the citadel purposely to inclose the head of this depression. There are besides no water reservoirs inside the wall of the arx. This supply of water, however, failed, and it must have failed rather early in the city's history, perhaps at about the time the lower part of the city was walled in, for the great reservoir on the Corso terrace seems to be contemporary with this second wall.
But at all times Præneste was dependent upon reservoirs for a sure and lasting supply of water. The mountain and the town were famous because of the number of water reservoirs there.[81]A great many of these reservoirs were dependent upon catchings from the rain,[82]but before a war, or when the rainfall was scant, they were filled undoubtedly from springs outside the city. In later times they were connected with the aqueducts which came to the city from beyond Capranica.
It is easy to account now for the number of gates on the east side of the city. True, this side of the wall lay away from the Campagna, and egress from gates on this side could not be seen by an enemy unless he moved clear across the front of the city.[83]But the real reason for the presence of so many gates is that the best and most copious springs were on this side of the city, as well as the course of the little headstream of the Trerus. The best concealed egress was from the Porta Cesareo, from which a road led round back of the mountain to a fine spring, which was high enough above the valley to be quite safe.
There are no references in literature to aqueducts which brought water to Præneste. Were we left to this evidence alone, we should conclude that Præneste had depended upon reservoirs for water. But in inscriptions we have mention of baths,[84]the existence of which implies aqueducts, and there is the specus of an aqueduct to be seen outside the Porta S. Francesco.[85]This ran across to the Colle S. Martino to supply a large brick reservoir of imperial date.[86]There were aqueducts still in 1437, for Cardinal Vitelleschi captured Palestrina by cutting off its water supply.[87]This shows that the water came from outside the city, and through aqueducts which probably dated back to Roman times,[88]and also that the reservoirs were at this time no longer used. In 1581 the city undertook to restore the old aqueduct which brought water from back of Capranica, but no description was left of its exact course or ancient construction.[89]While these repairs were in progress, Francesco Cecconi leased to the city his property called Terreni, where there were thirty fine springs of clear water not far from the city walls. Again in 1776 the springs called delle cannuccete sent in dirty water to the city, so citizens were appointed to remedy matters. They added a new spring to those already in use and this water came to the city through an aqueduct.[90]
The remains of four great reservoirs, all of brick construction, are plainly enough to be seen at Palestrina, and as far as situation and size are concerned, are well enough described in other places.[91]But in the case of these reservoirs, as in that of all the other remains of ancient construction at Præneste, the writers on the history of the town have made great mistakes, because all of them have been predisposed to the pleasant task of making all the ruins fit some restoration or other of the temple of Fortuna, although, as a matter of fact, none of the reservoirs have any connection whatever with the temple.[92]The fine brick reservoir of the time of Tiberius,[93]which is at the junction of the Via degli Arconi and the road from the Porta S. Martino, was not built to supply fountains or baths in the forum below, but was simply a great supply reservoir for the citizens who lived in particular about the lower forum, and the water from this reservoir was carried away by hand, as is shown by the two openings like well heads in the top of each compartment of the reservoir, and by the steps which gave entrance to it on the east. The reservoir above this in the Barberini gardens is of a date a half century later.[94]It is of the same brick work as the great fountain which stands, now debased to a grist mill, across the Via degli Arconi about half way between S. Lucia and Porta del Sole. The upper reservoir undoubtedly supplied this fountain, and other public buildings in the forum below. There is another large brick reservoir below the present ground level in the angle between the Via degli Arconi and the Cave road below the Porta del Sole, but it is too low ever to have served for public use. It was in connection with some private bath. The fourth huge reservoir, the one on Colle S. Martino, has already been mentioned.
But the most ancient of all the reservoirs is one which is not mentioned anywhere. It dates from the time when the Corso terrace was made, and is of opus quadratum like the best of the wall below the city, and the wall on the lower side of the terrace.[95]This reservoir, like the one in the Barberini garden, served the double purpose of a storage for water, and of a foundation for the terrace, which, being thus widened, offered more space for street and buildings above. It lies west of the basilica, but has no connection with the temple. From its position it seems rather to have been one of the secret public water supplies.[96]
Præneste had in early times only one spring within the city walls, just inside the gate leading into the arx. There were other springs on the mountain to the east and northeast, but too far away to be included within the walls. Because of their height above the valley, they were to a certain extent available even in times of warfare and siege. As the upper spring dried up early, and the others were a little precarious, an elaborate system of reservoirs was developed, a plan which the natural terraces of the mountain slope invited, and a plan which gave more space to the town itself with the work of leveling necessary for the reservoirs. These reservoirs were all public property. They were at first dependent upon collection from rains or from spring water carried in from outside the city walls. Later, however, aqueducts were made and connected with the reservoirs.
With the expansion of the town to the plain below, this system gave great opportunity for the development of baths, fountains, and waterworks,[97]for Præneste wished to vie with Tibur and Rome, where the Anio river and the many aqueducts had made possible great things for public use and municipal adornment.
THE TEMPLE OF FORTUNA PRIMIGENIA.
Nusquam se fortunatiorem quam Præneste vidisse Fortunam.[98]In this way Cicero reports a popular saying which makes clear the fame of the goddess Fortuna Primigenia and her temple at Præneste.[99]
The excavations at Præneste in the eighteenth century brought the city again into prominence, and from that time to the present, Præneste has offered much material for archæologists and historians.
But the temple of Fortuna has constituted the principal interest and engaged the particular attention of everyone who has worked upon the history of the town, because the early enthusiastic view was that the temple occupied the whole slope of the mountain,[100]and that the present city was built on the terraces and in the ruins of the temple. Every successive study, however, of the city from a topographical point of view has lessened more and more the estimated size of the temple, until now all that can be maintained successfully is that there are two separate temples built at different times, the later and larger one occupying a position two terraces higher than the older and more important temple below.
The lower temple with its precinct, along the north side of which extends a wall and the ruins of a so-called cryptoporticus which connected two caves hollowed out in the rock, is not so very large a sanctuary, but it occupies a very good position above and behind the ancient forum and basilica on a terrace cut back into the solid rock of the mountain. The temple precinct is a courtyard which extends along the terrace and occupies its whole width from the older cave on the west to the newer one at the east. In front of the latter cave is built the temple itself, which faces west along the terrace, but extends its southern facade to the edge of the ancient forum which it overlooks. This temple is older than the time of Sulla, and occupies the site of an earlier temple.
Two terraces higher, on the Cortina terrace, stretch out the ruins of a huge construction in opus incertum. This building had at least two stories of colonnade facing the south, and at the north side of the terrace a series of arches above which in the center rose a round temple which was approached by a semicircular flight of steps.[101]This building, belonging to the time of Sulla, presented a very imposing appearance from the forum below the town. It has no connection with the lower temple unless perhaps by underground passages.
Although this new temple and complex of buildings was much larger and costlier than the temple below, it was so little able to compete with the fame of the ancient shrine, that until mediæval times there is not a mention of it anywhere by name or by suggestion, unless perhaps in one inscription mentioned below. The splendid publication of Delbrueck[102]with maps and plans and bibliography of the lower temple and the work which has been done on it, makes unnecessary any remarks except on some few points which have escaped him.
The tradition was that a certain Numerius Suffustius of Præneste was warned in dreams to cut into the rocks at a certain place, and this he did before his mocking fellow citizens, when to the bewilderment of them all pieces of wood inscribed with letters of the earliest style leaped from the rock. The place where this phenomenon occurred was thus proved divine, the cult of Fortuna Primigenia was established beyond peradventure, and her oracular replies to those who sought her shrine were transmitted by means of these lettered blocks.[103]This story accounts for a cave in which the lots (sortes) were to be consulted.
But there are two caves. The reason why there are two has never been shown, nor does Delbrueck have proof enough to settle which is the older cave.[104]
The cave to the west is made by Delbrueck the shrine of Iuppiter puer, and the temple with its cave at the east, the ædes Fortunæ. This he does on the authority of his understanding of the passage from Cicero which gives nearly all the written information we have on the subject of the temple.[105]Delbrueck bases his entire argument on this passage and two other references to a building called ædes.[106]Now it was Fortuna who was worshipped at Præneste, and not Jupiter. Although there is an intimate connection between Jupiter and Fortuna at Præneste, because she was thought of at different times as now the mother and now the daughter of Jupiter, still the weight of evidence will not allow any such importance to be attached to Iuppiter puer as Delbrueck wishes.[107]
The two caves were not made at the same time. This is proved by the fact that the basilica[108]is below and between them. Had there been two caves at the earliest time, with a common precinct as a connection between them, as there was later, there would have been power enough in the priesthood to keep the basilica from occupying the front of the place which would have been the natural spot for a temple or for the imposing facade of a portico. The western cave is the earlier, but it is the earlier not because it was a shrine of Iuppiter puer, but because the ancient road which came through the forum turned up to it, because it is the least symmetrical of the two caves, and because the temple faced it, and did not face the forum.
The various plans of the temple[109]have usually assumed like buildings in front of each cave, and a building, corresponding to the basilica, between them and forming an integral part of the plan. But the basilica does not quite align with the temple, and the road back of the basilica precludes any such idea, not to mention the fact that no building the size of a temple was in front of the west cave. It is the mania for making the temple cover too large a space, and the desire to show that all its parts were exactly balanced on either side, and that this triangular shaped sanctuary culminated in a round temple, this it is that has caused so much trouble with the topography of the city. The temple, as it really is, was larger perhaps than any other in Latium, and certainly as imposing.
Delbrueck did not see that there was a real communication between the caves along the so-called cryptoporticus. There is a window-like hole, now walled up, in the east cave at the top, and it opened out upon the second story of the cryptoporticus, as Marucchi saw.[110]So there was an unseen means of getting from one cave to the other. This probably proves that suppliants at one shrine went to the other and were there convinced of the power of the goddess by seeing the same priest or something which they themselves had offered at the first shrine. It certainly proves that both caves were connected with the rites having to do with the proper obtaining of lots from Fortuna, and that this communication between the caves was unknown to any but the temple servants.
There are some other inscriptions not noticed by Delbrueck which mention the ædes,[111]and bear on the question in hand. One inscription found in the Via delle Monache[112]shows that in connection with the sedes Fortunæ were a manceps and three cellarii. This is an inscription of the last of the second or the first of the third century A.D.,[113]when both lower and upper temples were in very great favor. It shows further that only the lower temple is meant, for the number is too small to be applicable to the great upper temple, and it also shows that ædes, means the temple building itself and not the whole precinct. There is also an inscription, now in the floor of the cathedral, that mentions ædes. Its provenience is noteworthy.[114]There were other buildings, however, belonging to the precinct of the lower temple, as is shown by the remains today.[115]That there was more than one sacred building is also shown by inscriptions which mention ædes sacræ,[116]though these may refer of course to the upper temple as well.
There are yet two inscriptions of importance, one of which mentions a porticus, the other an ædes et porticus.[117]The second of these inscriptions belongs to a time not much later than the founding of the colony. It tells that certain work was done by decree of the decuriones, and it can hardly refer to the ancient lower temple, but must mean either the upper one, or still another out on the new forum, for there is where the stone is reported to have been found. The first inscription records a work of some consequence done by a woman in remembrance of her husband.[118]There are no remains to show that the forum below the town had any temple of such consequence, so it seems best to refer both these inscriptions to the upper temple, which, as we know, was rich in marble.[119]
Now after having brought together all the usages of the word ædes in its application to the temple of Præneste, it seems that Delbrueck has very small foundation for his argument which assumes as settled the exact meaning and location of the ædes Fortunæ.
From the temple itself we turn now to a brief discussion of a space on the tufa wall which helps to face the cave on the west. This is a smoothed surface which shows a narrow cornice ledge above it, and a narrow base below. In it are a number of irregularly driven holes. Delbrueck calls it a votive niche,[120]and says that the "viele regellos verstreute Nagelloecher" are due to nails upon which votive offerings were suspended.
This seems quite impossible. The holes are much too irregular to have served such a purpose. The holes show positively that they were made by nails which held up a slab of some kind, perhaps of marble, on which were displayed the replies from the goddess[121]which were too long to be given by means of the lettered blocks (sortes). Most likely, however, it was a marble slab or bronze tablet which contained the lex templi, and was something like the tabula Veliterna.[122]
On the floor of the two caves were two very beautiful mosaics, one of which is now in the Barberini palace, the other, which is in a sadly mutilated condition, still on the floor of the west cave. The date of these mosaics has been a much discussed question. Marucchi puts it at the end of the second century A.D., while Delbrueck makes it the early part of the first century B.C., and thinks the mosaics were the gift of Sulla. Delbrueck does not make his point at all, and Marucchi is carried too far by a desire to establish a connection at Præneste between Fortuna and Isis.[123]Not to go into a discussion of the date of the Greek lettering which gives the names of the animals portrayed in the finer mosaic, nor the subject of the mosaic itself,[124]the inscription given above[118]should help to settle the date of the mosaic. Under Claudius, between the years 51 and 54 A.D., a portico was decorated with marble and a coating of marble facing. That this was a very splendid ornamentation is shown by the fact that it is mentioned so particularly in the inscription. And if in 54 A.D. marble and marble facing were things so worthy of note, then certainly one hundred and thirty years earlier there was no marble mosaic floor in Præneste like the one under discussion, which is considered the finest large piece of Roman mosaic in existence. And it was fifty years later than the date Delbrueck wishes to assign to this mosaic, before marble began to be used in any great profusion in Rome, and at this time Præneste was not in advance of Rome. The mosaic, therefore, undoubtedly dates from about the time of Hadrian, and was probably a gift to the city when he built himself a villa below the town.[125]
Finally, a word with regard to the ærarium. This is under the temple of Fortuna, but is not built with any regard to the facade of the temple above. The inscription on the back wall of the chamber is earlier than the time of Sulla,[126]andthe position of this little vault[127]shows that it was a treasury connected with the basilica, indeed its close proximity about makes it part of that building and proves that it was the storehouse for public funds and records. It occupied a very prominent place, for it was at the upper end of the old forum, directly in front of the Sacra Via that came up past the basilica from the Porta Triumphalis. The conclusion of the whole matter is that the earliest city forum grew up on the terrace in front of the place where the mysterious lots had leaped out of the living rock. A basilica was built in a prominent place in the northwest corner of the forum. Later, another wonderful cave was discovered or made, and at such a distance from the first one that a temple in front of it would have a facing on the forum beyond the basilica, and this also gave a space of ground which was leveled off into a terrace above the basilica and the forum, and made into a sacred precinct. Because the basilica occupied the middle front of the temple property, the temple was made to face west along the terrace, toward the more ancient cave. The sacred precinct in front of the temple and between the caves was enclosed, and had no entrance except at the west end where the Sacra Via ended, which was in front of the west cave. Before the temple, facing the sacred inclosure was the pronaos mentioned in the inscription above,[128]and along each side of this inclosure ran a row of columns, and probably one also on the west side. Both caves and the temple were consecrated to the service of Fortuna Primigenia, the tutelary goddess of Præneste. Both caves and an earlier temple, which occupied part of the site of the present one, belong to the early life of Præneste.
Sulla built a huge temple on the second terrace higher than the old temple, but its fame and sanctity were never comparable to its beauty and its pretensions.[129]
THE EPIGRAPHICAL TOPOGRAPHY OF PRÆNESTE.
ÆDICULA, C.I.L., XIV, 2908.
From the provenience of the inscription this building, not necessarily a sacred one (Dessau), was one of the many structures on the site of the new Forum below the town.
PUBLICA ÆDIFICIA, C.I.L., XIV, 2919, 3032.
Barbarus Pompeianus about 227 A.D. restored a number of public buildings which had begun to fall to pieces. A mensor æd(ificiorum) (see Dict. under sarcio) is mentioned in C.I.L., XIV, 3032.
ÆDES ET PORTICUS, C.I.L., XIV, 2980.
See discussion of temple,page 42.
ÆDES, C.I.L., XIV, 2864, 2867, 3007.
See discussion of temple,page 42.
ÆDES SACRÆ, C.I.L., XIV, 2922, 4091, 9== Annali dell'Inst., 1855, p. 86.
See discussion of temple,page 42.
ÆRARIUM, C.I.L., XIV, 2975; Bull. dell'Inst., 1881, p. 207; Marucchi, Bull. dell'Inst., 1881, p. 252; Nibby, Analisi, II, p. 504; best and latest, Delbrueck, Hellenistische Bauten in Latium, I, p. 58.
The points worth noting are: that this ærarium is not built with reference to the temple above, and that it faces out on the public square. These points have been discussed more at length above, and will receive still more attention below under the caption "FORUM."
AMPHITHEATRUM, C.I.L., XIV, 3010, 3014; Juvenal, III, 173; Ovid, A.A., I, 103 ff.
The remains found out along the Valmontone road[130]coincide nearly enough with the provenience of the inscription to settle an amphitheatre here of late imperial date. The tradition of the death of the martyr S. Agapito in an amphitheatre, and the discovery of a Christian church on the Valmontone road, have helped to make pretty sure the identification of these ruins.[131]
We know also from an inscription that there was a gladiatorial school at Præneste.[132]
BALNEÆ, C.I.L., XIV, 3013, 3014 add.
The so-called nymphæum, the brick building below the Via degli Arconi, mentionedpage 41, seems to have been a bath as well as a fountain, because of the architectural fragments found there[133]when it was turned into a mill by the Bonanni brothers. The reservoir mentioned above on page 41 must have belonged also to a bath, and so do the ruins which are out beyond the villa under which the modern cemetery now is. From their orientation they seem to belong to the villa. There were also baths on the hill toward Gallicano, as the ruins show.[134]
BYBLIOTHECÆ, 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 Præneste. 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 quæstors of the city bought a space 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 space 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 Præneste 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.
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 Præneste was inside the city walls. It was in this forum that the statue of M. Anicius, the famous prætor, was set up.[137]The writers hitherto, however, have been entirely mistaken, in my opinion, as to the extent of the ancient forum. For the old forum was not an open space which is now represented by the Piazza Savoia of the modern town, as is generally accepted, but the ancient forum of Præneste was that piazza and the piazza Garibaldi and the space 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 space 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 illustration (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 Prænestine topography, namely, a SACRA VIA. An inscription to an aurufex de sacra via[140]makes certain that there was a road in Præneste 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 Præneste.[141]
At the upper end of the forum under the south façade 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 space 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 façade 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 space 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 Prænestine fasti in 1897 and 1903[152]also helps to locate the lower forum.[153]
PLATE V. The tufa steps at the upper end of the ancient Forum of Præneste.
The forum inside the city walls was the forum of Præneste, the ally of Rome, the more pretentious one below the city was the forum of Præneste, the Roman colony of Sulla.