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A Stranger in Town: Finding the Way in an Ancient City

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Roger Ling
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Extract

My subject concerns the practicalities of finding one's way round an ancient city. What aids were there to guide a stranger in town? How did he trace a particular house or other destination? I propose to examine the problem with reference to one of the best known of all ancient cities, Pompeii.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , October 1990 , pp. 204 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

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References

Notes

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7. But gates in ancient cities were not always named in this way: cf. the Porta Jovis at Capua (Livy 26.14.6) and the Porta Laeva and Porta Domestica at Cales (CIL x, 4660).

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21. Grenfell, B. P., Hunt, A. S., and others, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (1898–)Google Scholar (P. Oxy.), passim.

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24. CIL iv, 3779.

25. CIL iv, 806–7.

26. Cicero, , De Oratore 2.266Google Scholar; Quintilian 6.3.38.

27. CIL xii, 4377 (hospitalis a Gallo Gallinacio). Generally on shop- and inn-signs Jordan, H., ‘Über römische Aushängeschilder’;, Archäologische Zeitung, xxix (1872), 65–79Google Scholar; Mau, A., ‘Aushängeschilder’, in Pauly-Wissowa, , Realencylopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft ii, 2 (1896), 2558f.Google Scholar; cf. Kleberg, T., Hôtels, restaurants et cabarets dans I'antiquité romaine (Bibliotheca Ekmaniana lxi) (1957), passimGoogle Scholar.

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29. Eschebach, H., Die städtebauliche Entwicklung des antiken Pompeji (Röm. Mitt. Ergänzungsheft xvii) (1970), pp. 117–52Google Scholar.

30. Plan-fragment: Carettoni, and others, op. cit., p. 207Google Scholar, no. 2, tav. agg. Q, fig. 47; cf. pp. 208f., no. 6, tav. agg. Q, fig. 49; Almeida, Rodriguez, op. cit., pp. 57–62Google Scholar. Inscriptions: e.g. CIL vi, 67, 10248, 10250, 29791, 33893 (named insulae). In the country, however, we hear of at least some properties with conventional names, e.g. Livia's Villa Ad Gallinas at Primaporta (Pliny, , NH 15.137Google Scholar; Suetonius, , Galba 1Google Scholar) or Tiberius's Villa Iovis on Capri (Suetonius, , Tiberius 65Google Scholar).

31. Conway, , op. cit., p. 71, no. 63Google Scholar; Sgobbo, , art. cit., 22f.Google Scholar; Vetter, , op. cit., pp. 55f., no. 25Google Scholar.

32. CIL iv, 138.

33. CIL iv, 1136.

34. CIL x, 1063. The original function of the inscription is uncertain: cf. Kockel, V., Die Grabbauten vor dem herkulaner Tor in Pompeji (1983), p. 7, note 65Google Scholar.

35. P. Oxy. i (1898), 161–3, no. 99Google Scholar.

36. Terence, , Adelphi 572–84Google Scholar.

37. Ovid, , Tristia 3.1.21–34Google Scholar.

38. Acts 9.11.

39. Maiuri, A., La Casa del Menandro e il suo tesoro di argenteria (1932), p. 471, no. 9Google Scholar; Corte, M. Delia, Not. Scav. (1933), 294, no. 180Google Scholar.

40. Cited in Bullough, V. L. and Brundage, J., Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church (1982), pp. 179f.Google Scholar