DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.44944#0407
MUNDUS
347
(explained as postridie Volkanalia, ib. 156) et 111 Non. Octobr. et vi
Id. Novembr. Qui vel f enim 1f dictus est quod terra movetur), which was
in connection with the worship of the gods of the underworld. It was a
domed structure, large enough for a man to enter (ib. 157 : qui . . . quid
ita dicatur sic refert Cato in commentaris iuris civilis : ‘ Mundo nomen
impositum est ab eo mundo, qui supra nos est : forma enim eius est, ut
ex is qui intravere cognoscere potui, adsimilis illae ’) and in the floor of it
there was an opening, leading to a chamber or shaft, which was sacred
to the Di Manes, and was only opened on the three days above mentioned,
which were regarded as unlucky. Varro (ap. Macrob. i. 16. 18) also
says ‘ mundus cum patet, deorum tristium atque inferum quasi ianua
patet ’ ; cf. Serv. ad Verg. Aen. iii. 134: ‘ quidam aras superorum
deorum voluit esse, medioximorum, id est marinorum focos, inferorum
vero mundos.’ That the stone which closed the opening was called
Manalis lapis is a pure conjecture (see Manalis Lapis (i)). Nor have
we any information whatsoever as to the site of the mundus.
On the Palatine there was a small shrine (generally, since the time of
K. 0. Muller, Etrusker, ii. 99, identified with the mundus, but without
sufficient grounds), which was a memorial of the foundation of the city,
named Roma Quadrata (q.v.) by Festus 258, and described by Ovid,
Fast. iv. 821 sqq., who, however, gives it no name.
From this point Romulus started the furrow (sulcus primigenius)
which was to mark the line of the enceinte of his city. Plutarch’s
statement (Rom. Il), βόθρος yap ωρυγη περί. το vuv κομίτων κυκλοτερής . . .
καλούσι όε τον βόθρον τούτον φ καί τον όλυμττον όνόματι μουνόον, is the
result of confusion; and its absurdity is increased by his placing the
centre of the city of Romulus on the Comitium.
In 1914, under the north-east part of the peristyle of the domus
Augustiana, a chamber with a bee-hive roof was found, the sides of which
are lined with blocks of cappellaccio (a soft tufa) ; in the centre of it a
circular shaft descends to two underground passages cut in the rock
(which here rises to near the surface) which diverge but (after forming a
right-angled triangle with a hypotenuse of 12 metres) meet again in a
rock-cut domed chamber, half of which has been destroyed by Domitian’s
foundations (YW 1914, 12-13 ; CRA 1914, 109-III ; ZA 208 ; Mitt. 1926,
212-228).
Leopold (Meded. Nederland. Hist. Inst. i. (1921) 45-61 ; Bull. Pal. Ital.
1924, 193-206) not only accepts the bee-hive chamber as the mundus
(or a mundus), but believes that traces of Roma quadrata were also
found close by, and were indeed visible before the construction of the
palace of Domitian. Fie notes, however, that the mundus, which is
never brought into connection with the foundation of Rome, may be a
good deal later than the first settlement on the Palatine. He further
believes that the combination of mundus and Roma quadrata was repeated
1 So Lindsay; Muller has ' omni...’ No satisfactory emendation has yet been proposed.
347
(explained as postridie Volkanalia, ib. 156) et 111 Non. Octobr. et vi
Id. Novembr. Qui vel f enim 1f dictus est quod terra movetur), which was
in connection with the worship of the gods of the underworld. It was a
domed structure, large enough for a man to enter (ib. 157 : qui . . . quid
ita dicatur sic refert Cato in commentaris iuris civilis : ‘ Mundo nomen
impositum est ab eo mundo, qui supra nos est : forma enim eius est, ut
ex is qui intravere cognoscere potui, adsimilis illae ’) and in the floor of it
there was an opening, leading to a chamber or shaft, which was sacred
to the Di Manes, and was only opened on the three days above mentioned,
which were regarded as unlucky. Varro (ap. Macrob. i. 16. 18) also
says ‘ mundus cum patet, deorum tristium atque inferum quasi ianua
patet ’ ; cf. Serv. ad Verg. Aen. iii. 134: ‘ quidam aras superorum
deorum voluit esse, medioximorum, id est marinorum focos, inferorum
vero mundos.’ That the stone which closed the opening was called
Manalis lapis is a pure conjecture (see Manalis Lapis (i)). Nor have
we any information whatsoever as to the site of the mundus.
On the Palatine there was a small shrine (generally, since the time of
K. 0. Muller, Etrusker, ii. 99, identified with the mundus, but without
sufficient grounds), which was a memorial of the foundation of the city,
named Roma Quadrata (q.v.) by Festus 258, and described by Ovid,
Fast. iv. 821 sqq., who, however, gives it no name.
From this point Romulus started the furrow (sulcus primigenius)
which was to mark the line of the enceinte of his city. Plutarch’s
statement (Rom. Il), βόθρος yap ωρυγη περί. το vuv κομίτων κυκλοτερής . . .
καλούσι όε τον βόθρον τούτον φ καί τον όλυμττον όνόματι μουνόον, is the
result of confusion; and its absurdity is increased by his placing the
centre of the city of Romulus on the Comitium.
In 1914, under the north-east part of the peristyle of the domus
Augustiana, a chamber with a bee-hive roof was found, the sides of which
are lined with blocks of cappellaccio (a soft tufa) ; in the centre of it a
circular shaft descends to two underground passages cut in the rock
(which here rises to near the surface) which diverge but (after forming a
right-angled triangle with a hypotenuse of 12 metres) meet again in a
rock-cut domed chamber, half of which has been destroyed by Domitian’s
foundations (YW 1914, 12-13 ; CRA 1914, 109-III ; ZA 208 ; Mitt. 1926,
212-228).
Leopold (Meded. Nederland. Hist. Inst. i. (1921) 45-61 ; Bull. Pal. Ital.
1924, 193-206) not only accepts the bee-hive chamber as the mundus
(or a mundus), but believes that traces of Roma quadrata were also
found close by, and were indeed visible before the construction of the
palace of Domitian. Fie notes, however, that the mundus, which is
never brought into connection with the foundation of Rome, may be a
good deal later than the first settlement on the Palatine. He further
believes that the combination of mundus and Roma quadrata was repeated
1 So Lindsay; Muller has ' omni...’ No satisfactory emendation has yet been proposed.