Chapter I: The Topography of Praeneste (2)

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 Praeneste, 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]

Praeneste 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 Praeneste 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 Praeneste 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 Praeneste.[99]

The excavations at Praeneste in the eighteenth century brought the city again into prominence, and from that time to the present, Praeneste has offered much material for archaeologists 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 mediaeval 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 Praeneste 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 aedes Fortunae. 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 aedes.[106] Now it was Fortuna who was worshipped at Praeneste, and not Jupiter. Although there is an intimate connection between Jupiter and Fortuna at Praeneste, 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 aedes,[111] and bear on the question in hand. One inscription found in the Via delle Monache[112] shows that in connection with the sedes Fortunae 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 aedes, means the temple building itself and not the whole precinct. There is also an inscription, now in the floor of the cathedral, that mentions aedes. 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 aedes sacrae,[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 aedes 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 aedes in its application to the temple of Praeneste, it seems that Delbrueck has very small foundation for his argument which assumes as settled the exact meaning and location of the aedes Fortunae.

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 Praeneste 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 Praeneste 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 Praeneste 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 aerarium. 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] and the 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 Praeneste. Both caves and an earlier temple, which occupied part of the site of the present one, belong to the early life of Praeneste.

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 PRAENESTE.

AEDICULA, 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 AEDIFICIA, 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 aed(ificiorum) (see Dict. under sarcio) is mentioned in C.I.L., XIV, 3032.

AEDES ET PORTICUS, C.I.L., XIV, 2980.

See discussion of temple, page 42.

AEDES, C.I.L., XIV, 2864, 2867, 3007.

See discussion of temple, page 42.

AEDES SACRAE, C.I.L., XIV, 2922, 4091, 9== Annali dell'Inst., 1855, p. 86.

See discussion of temple, page 42.

AERARIUM, 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 aerarium 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 Praeneste.[132]

BALNEAE, C.I.L., XIV, 3013, 3014 add.

The so-called nymphaeum, the brick building below the Via degli Arconi, mentioned page 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]

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 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 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.

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 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 Praeneste 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 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 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 Praenestine fasti in 1897 and 1903[152] also helps to locate the lower forum.[153]

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.

MASSA 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.

Fernique (Étude sur Préneste, p. 119) thinks this the building the ruins of which are of brick and called a temple, near the Ponte dell' Ospedalato, but this is impossible. The date of the brick work is all much later than the date assigned to it by him, and much later than the name itself implies.

SEMINARIA A PORTA TRIUMPHALE, C.I.L., XIV, 2850.

This building was just inside the gate which was in the center of the south wall of Praeneste, directly below the ancient forum and basilica.

SOLARIUM, C.I.L., XIV, 3323.

SPOLIARIUM, C.I.L., XIV, 3014.

See Amphitheatrum.

TEMPLUM SARAPIS, C.I.L., XIV, 2901.

TEMPLUM HERCULIS, C.I.L., XIV, 2891, 2892; Not. d. Scavi, 11 (1882-1883), p. 48.

This temple was a mile or more distant from the city, in the territory now known as Bocce di Rodi, and was situated on the little road which made a short cut between the two great roads, the Praenestina and the Labicana.

SACRA VIA, Not. d. Scavi, Ser. 5, 4 (1896), p. 49.

In the discussions on the temple and the forum, pages 42 and 54, I think it is proved that the Sacra Via of Praeneste was the ancient road which extended from the Porta Triumphalis up through the Forum, past the Basilica and round behind it, to the entrance into the precinct and temple of Fortuna Primigenia.

VIA, C.I.L., XIV, 3001, 3343. Viam sternenda(m).

In inscription No. 3343 we have supra viam parte dex(tra), and from the provenience of the stone we get a proof that the old road which led out through the Porta S. Francesco was so well known that it was called simply "via."