<p>The relatively flat territory on the W bank of the Tiber N of *Trans Tiberim and the *Ianiculum (e.g., Cic., <i>Leg. agr.</i> 2.96: <i>Vaticanum</i> [sc. <i>agrum</i>]; Pliny, <i>NH</i> 3.54; Gell., <i>NA</i> 19.7.1: <i>in agro Vaticano</i>). The road to Veii, which was known at least by the mid-2nd c. A.D. as the *Via Triumphalis, crossed this plain, and the pyramid-tomb which rose close to the street and the river bank (*Sepulcrum: “Meta Romuli”) formed a monumental landmark in the Augustan period (foreshadowing Hadrian’s later use of adjacent land for his much grander mausoleum). In its most northern reaches, the Vaticanus Ager was farmland of moderate quality (Cic., <i>loc. cit.</i>) which produced notoriously poor wine (Mart., e.g., 6.92). Closer to Rome it featured <i>horti</i>, lavish gardens adorned with architecture, the existence of which is attested from the time of Cicero (<i>Att.</i> 13.33a.1; notable post-Augustan villas are the <i>horti Agrippinae</i> and <i>horti Domitiae</i>).</p> <p>From Cicero (<i>Att.</i> 13.33a.1; 45 B.C.) we learn that the *Horti Scapulani (Eck) stood in the ‘<i>campus Vaticanus</i>’ (a term probably invented for the occasion, Richardson 68); he wished to acquire this property, which had gained some prominence in recent years, in order to build a funeral chapel for his daughter Tullia(<i>Att</i>. 12.36.1; 13.29.1; Verzár-Bass 401-4). Cicero also preserves the account of Julius Caesar’s megalomaniac plan to redirect the Tiber from the Mulvian Bridge along the <i>montes Vaticani</i>, and thus bring the <i>campus Vaticanus</i> into union with the *Campus Martius, turning the one into the other in order to gain space for a dramatic expansion of the city (Cic., <i>Att.</i> 13.33a.1: <i>campum Vaticanum fieri quasi Martium campum</i>). Favro’s schematic map of the intended redirection of the Tiber, from some distance SW of the Mulvian Bridge to the river’s bend at the W tip of the Campus Martius, may come close to the historic plans regarding the Vaticanus Ager, whereas the depicted S extension across Trans Tiberim is topographically incorrect and apparently not justified, depending perhaps on Richardson’s equation (405) of the <i>montes Vaticani</i> with the full range of the ridges to the W of Rome (for discussion of sources on the Ianiculum: Liverani).</p>