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A New Edition of the Marble Plan of Ancient Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Herbert Bloch
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Extract

Few monuments of Ancient Rome can command more interest and fascination than the Marble Plan of the city of Rome. Early in the third century this colossal map was put up in panels on the wall of a building in the Forum Pacis at the behest of the Emperor Septimius Severus or his Praefectus Urbi. It is a unique document not only because no other plan of a major Roman city survives, but also because the city which it depicts is Rome, at the height of her development as the capital of the world. Although only a fraction of the Plan has come down to us, these fragments are invaluable for our knowledge of individual buildings as well as of the city as a whole; hence its appeal to students of architecture and urbanistics, of archaeology and history.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 1-2 , November 1961 , pp. 143 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © Herbert Bloch 1961. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 In this context especially valuable: Boëthius, A., The Golden House of Nero (Jerome Lectures v) (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1960), 137–140, 143–5, 155–165.Google Scholar

2 Forma Urbis Romae Regionum XIIII (Berlin, 1874).

3 Carettoni, G., Colini, A. M., Cozza, L., Gatti, G., La Pianta Marmorea di Roma Antica — Forma Urbis Romae. Rome: X Ripartizione del Comune di Roma, 1960. Vols. I, II: pp. 265 + 76 figs. + pls. A–RGoogle Scholar; pp. 6 + 62 plates, fol. Lire 40,000.

4 Fragmenta vestigii veteris Romae ex lapidibus Farnesianis nunc primum in lucem edita cum notis (Rome, 1673). Cf. in general Carettoni's bibliography, pp. 17–22.

5 For the ‘secret garden’ cf. Colini, pp. 26–8, and Tav. C, fig. 13.

6 They are now housed in the Farnesina dei Baullari.

7 ‘“Saepta Julia” e “Porticus Aemilia” nella “forma” severiana,’ Bull. com. LXII (1934), 123–149.

8 ‘I Saepta Julia nel Campo Marzio,’ L'Urbe II (1937), no 9, 2–17; Rend. Pont. Acc. Arch. XX (1943–4), 153.

9 Gatti, G., ‘Il portico degli Argonauti e la basilica di Nettuno,’ Atti del III Convegno Naz. di Storia dell' Architettura 1938 (Rome, 1941), 61–73.Google Scholar

10 ‘Forum Pacis,’ Bull. com. LXV (1937), 7–40.

11 ‘L'angolo meridionale del Foro della Pace,’ Bull. com. LXXVI (1956–8), 119–142.

12 Riv. Filol. Class. LXXIV (1946), 157–165; LXXVI (1948), 285, n. 1.

13 On L. Fabius Cilo cf. Groag, E., PIR 2 III (1948), 97–100Google Scholar; Barbieri, G., L'albo senatorio da Settimio Severo a Carino (Rome, 1952), 52–3Google Scholar; Vitucci, G., Ricerche sulla praefectura urbi in etè imperiale (Rome, 1956), 73–81.Google Scholar

14 Libellus de regionibus urbis Romae rec. A. Nordh (Lund, 1949), 93.

15 Hülsen-Jordan, , Topographie der Stadt Rom, 1, 3 (Berlin, 1907), 188Google Scholar, n. 15a; Platner-Ashby, , Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1929), 266Google Scholar; Grimal, , Les jardins romains (Paris, 1943), 174Google Scholar, n. 5, 8.

16 PIR 1 1, 331, no. 509; Stein, A., PIR 2 II (1936), p. 141Google Scholar, no. 612. Cozza, p. 113, correctly evaluates the evidence.

17 Gatti, pp. 227–8.

18 Gatti, pp. 199–200.

19 No. 41a-c (Jordan 68; 67; 78) = Tav. XXXII, combined by Cozza (p. 107) to read MA(usoleum)/HA(driani). The restoration seems assured. Whether or not the monument itself was on the Plan is uncertain.

20 By Gatti's son Edoardo. Very valuable also the observations on the inscriptions by Colini and Cozza (pp. 165–172); the epigraphical and typological indices by R. A. Staccioli; the thorough analysis of the signs used in the Plan by G. Cressedi (pp. 201–6); and the detailed index of fragments by Emilia Levi.

21 Storia e Topografia del Celio nell' antichità, Mem. Pont. Acc. Arch. VII (1944), 138 ff., fig. 95.

22 Pointed out by Carettoni, p. 78. Lugli, , Fontes ad Topographiam veteris Romae pertinentes VIII, 1 (Rome, 1960), 18Google Scholar, no. 127, has accepted the editors' view; for his earlier doubts cf. Roma antica: Il centro monumentale (Rome, 1946), 73.

23 Cf. Colini, o.c. (above, n. 21), 199 ff., tav. XI.

24 Bull. com. LXIII (1935), 161–3.

25 Hülsen, , Röm. Mitt. 1903, 17 ff.Google Scholar; Lundström, , Undersökningar i Roms topografi (Göteborg, 1929), 110 ff.Google Scholar

26 The name of the temple on the Forma is SERAPAEV(m) [sic], as Cozza demonstrated; Lundström's addition of a first line (iseu)M E(t) is untenable.

27 The Porticus or Templum Divorum was a sanctuary built by Domitian to honour his father and brother. A wall decorated on the outside with rectangular and semicircular niches, which was found in 1925 in Via del Plebiscito, has been identified with the southern wall of the Divorum first by Mancini, G. (Not. Scavi 1925, 239–242Google Scholar) and then by Sjöquist, E. (Opusc. Arch. IV [1946], 106 ff.Google Scholar; cf. also Blake, Marion E., Roman Construction in Italy from Tiberius through the Flavians (Washington, D.C., 1959), 113).Google Scholar While this identification is not supported by the new discoveries, the question of the wall of Via del Plebiscito, posed well by Sjöquist, remains unresolved, cf. Gatti's remarks, p. 101, and fig. 1 here.

28 Gatti, p. 101.

29 ‘Un sottopassaggio archeologico,’ Capitolium XXXI (1956), 129–140, esp. 133.

30 Colini, p. 105; Gatti, p. 230.

31 ‘Dove erano situati il Teatro di Balbo e il Circo Flaminio?,’ Capitolium XXXV (1960), no. 7, 3–12: ‘Ancora sulla vera posizione del Teatro di Balbo e del Circo Flaminio,’ Palatino v (1961), nos. 1–2.

32 Gatti, p. 228; Colini, p. 106.

33 In addition to the handbooks, cf. especially the monograph by Marchetti Longhi, G., ‘Circus Flaminius,’ Mem. Acc. Naz. Lincei (Classe Scienze Morali) XVI (1922), 621–770.Google Scholar

34 cf. Lugli, G., La tecnica edilizia romana (Rome, 1957) 1, 506, 508Google Scholar; 11, Tav. CXXXIV, 4.

35 ‘Il Campo Marzio nell'antichità,’ Atti Acc. Naz. Lincei (Classe Scienze Morali) ser. VIII, 1 (1946), 112–127, a study which has rather gained than lost stature as a result of the upheaval in the topography of Regio IX.