Asylum

The area remembered as the site of the sanctuary established by Romulus to attract new settlers stood on the saddle between the N and S peaks of the *Capitol, inter Arcem et Capitolium, ‘between the Arx and the Capitolium’, in the area ‘between the two groves’, inter duos lucos (sources in Wiseman, LTUR). It was thought that the summits of the Capitol were once wooded, hence Dionysius of Halicarnassus explains that the expression ‘between the two groves’, μεθόριον δυεῖν δρυμῶν, did once reflect reality (Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom. 2.15.4). The Asylum is traditionally placed in Piazza del Campidoglio (Wellesley, von Sydow). More recent scholarship has noted that the expressions, ‘between the two groves’ and ‘between the Arx and the Capitolium’, are also used to describe the location of the Temple of *Veiovis (Vitr., De arch. 4.8.4 and Gell., NA 5.12.2, respectively; cf. Ov., Fast. 3.430), which was nestled in the SW corner of the *Tabularium. The Asylum was originally surrounded by a high stone wall (Ov., Fast. 3.431), and in the Augustan period it was still marked off as a locus saeptus, ‘an enclosed space’ (Livy 1.8.5). This delineated sacred area which stood between the two groves was itself a grove, lucus Asyli (Tac., Hist. 3.71). Scholars who place the Asylum in a close relationship with the Temple of Veiovis have offered three interpretations of the textual and physical evidence. (1) Wiseman (LTUR) focuses on the corrupt passage of Livy (1.8.5), which describes the position of the locus saeptus: descendentibus inter duos lucos est asylum, emended to read escendentibus inter duos lucos <ad laevam>. Thus the Asylum stood on the left side of a road that led between the two groves; Wiseman identifies this road as that which led from the *Forum Romanum to the *Campus Martius inter lucos (Cic., Att. 4.3.4; s.v. *Iter [inter Lucos]); part of this thoroughfare survived in the Augustan period as an internal passage in the Tabularium that led from the Forum to the Temple of Veiovis (s.v. *Tabularium). Wiseman thus places the Asylum just S of the Temple of Veiovis. This placement is consistent with the description of a fire that spread from the lucus Asyli to the *Area Capitolina during the Vitellians’ attack on the Capitoline in A.D. 69 (Tac., Hist. 3.71). (2) La Rocca offers a highly conjectural case for identifying the Asylum with the Tabularium. For example, he compares: Livy’s description of the Asylum as a locus saeptus and the Tabularium’s irregular ground-plan, which perhaps preserved pre-existing spatial divisions; and Ovid’s description of the Asylum’s high stone walls and the imposing foundations of the Tabularium. La Rocca suggests that the surviving foundations of the Tabularium formed a large terraced platform, perhaps surrounded by porticoes, and planted with trees as a hanging garden to represent the Asylum grove (La Rocca 25-27). The crucial flaw, as noted by Mura Sommella (442), is that La Rocca ignores the explicit epigraphical evidence that at least part of the structure known as the Tabularium functioned as an archive (for the inscriptions, s.v. Tabularium). (3) Mura Sommella also feels that the irregular shape of the Tabularium reflects “ideological-religious” concerns; not only does the Tabularium respect the pre-existing Temple of Veiovis, it also preserves an asymmetrical opening on its S flank, E of the Temple of Veiovis (Mura Sommella 437-38). It is here that she places the Asylum. This niche is very small, certainly not large enough for a grove of trees; in addition, this space would probably have been paved (these points are raised by La Rocca 28). But Mura Sommella notes that a mud hut was found here during excavations, and argues that lucus (derived from lux, ‘light’) does not signify a grove of trees, but rather the consecrated clearing within a grove (cf. OLD 1047); thus the small size of this niche and its position within a building may be explained (Mura Sommella 428, 438). She also suggests, on the basis of Iron and Bronze Age remains found under the Tabularium, that there was an early village inter duos lucos, which may be interpreted in terms of the asylum, or refuge, set up by Romulus (Mura Sommella 431-34). Yet in 57-56 B.C. Cicero described the site of the house of M. Manlius Capitolinus (placed by Cicero on the saddle of the Capitol, according to Wiseman 1979) as duobus lucis convestitam (Cic., Dom. 101). The translation ‘clothed by two groves’ makes sense, whereas ‘clothed by two clearings’ is somewhat forced. Thus it would seem that the lucus Asyli of Tacitus was indeed a grove of trees. The simplest and most convincing reading of the evidence remains that of Wiseman (LTUR), who locates the Asylum just S of the Temple of Veiovis.