Parker, John Henry: The archaeology of Rome (1,text): I. The primitive fortifications (Oxford [u.a.], 1874)

32

Primitive Fortifications.

[CHAP. I.

of the Palatine ; one on the north-east, where the Via Sacra was made,
one between the Palatine proper and the Velia, which was the Summa
Via Sacra, or upper Via Sacra, and on this a market for apples was
held in the time of the Republic, as related by Varros, and he also
mentions a tradition of his time, that there had been originally an
orchard on this site4. This market was continued in the time of
the Empire.
It was the usual custom of the ancient Romans, as of other
primitive people, to make the main roadway, or via, below the
terrace, at the bottom of the fossu, and thus the ancient roads,
although now raised to the level of the ground, often enable us to
trace distinctly the ancient fossce. The lower Via Sacra was at
the bottom of the foss until after the commencement of the Em-
pire, when the fashion of raising the roads to a higher level had
begun in Rome. The churches standing on the outer bank of
the old foss, and at the foot of this part of the Esquiline, shew
the alteration of the level very distinctly. One at the south-east
corner of the Forum, which was originally the temple of Antoninus
and Faustina, now the church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda, has the
lower part of the columns of the portico excavated to the original
level of the top of the steps, which descended still lower to the
ancient via many feet below the level of the present road, and the
lower part of the old temple is made into a crypt under the present
church. Another, originally the temple of Romulus, the son of
Maxentius, is now part of the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian ; the
lower part of the old circular temple, on a level with the old via,
is turned into the crypt of the church. The upper church, built
early in the sixth century, is on a level with the present via. The
original doorway of this temple was also on the top of a flight of
steps from the lower Via Sacra and on a level with the present
floor of the crypt, but it has been removed, and replaced twenty
feet higher when the upper church was rebuilt in the sixteenth
century.
The Basilica of Constantine, further to the south-east along the
same line, partly cut out of the ancient earthwork called the Velia,
is on the same level as the upper Via Sacra, and opposite to the

3 T. Varro, de re Rustica, c. 2.
' “Ad cometa Forum Cupedinis a
Cupedio ; quod multi Forum Cupedinis
Cupiditate. Haec omnia posteaquam
contracta in unum locum quae ad vic-
tum pertinebant, et aedificatus locus :
appellatum Macellum, ut quidam scri-

bunt quod ibi fuerit ortus.” (T. Varro,
de Ling. Lat., v. 32.)
u Such a road was called a foss-way,
or covered way, the soldiers marching
along it being covered or protected
from the wind and from the observation
of enemies.