Caelius Mons: Building (4)

Fragmentary opus reticulatum walls were recovered on the S slope of the *Caelian, outside the *Servian Wall on the site of the Imperial castra Peregrina. Construction of the Convent and Hospital of the Little Company of Mary in 1905-9 revealed these remains, which are located below, and at a divergent orientation from, walls of the 2nd c. A.D. which belong to the castra Peregrina, a camp for soldiers of the provincial armies assigned to Rome (Baille Reynolds, Richardson; Lissi Caronna does not take this evidence into account when discussing the castra). Though the reticulate remains are too scant to propose their original architectural form, Baille Reynolds tentatively associates them with an Augustan-era residence — provided that the institution of the castra Peregrina existed in the Augustan period and was housed in a private domus, on analogy to the Augustan quartering of the Praetorian Guard (Baille Reynolds 159, 162 with n.2; cf. Suet., Aug. 49). Richardson, in a more positivistic vein, interprets the reticulate walls as evidence for the Augustan existence of the castra; yet no corroborative testimony attests to the institution of the castra Peregrina under Augustus. Thus, the reticulate walls establish that an indeterminate structure stood on the site during the Augustan era (Blake dates the opus reticulatum to the Augustan period); however, the walls alone are insufficient testimony to establish the Augustan existence of the castra Peregrina. Further, a number of Republican tombs and two sepulchral inscriptions were found below the remains of the late-Imperial castra (Baille Reynolds 161-62; *Sepulcra: Caelius Mons [2]); thus the size of the reticulate structure was limited. For these reasons, the reticulate remains have been indicated with an index number on our map and the identification purposefully left vague.